Example · Jan 11, 1984
Voyager 1 was 18.5 AU away
Neptune to here: 142.1 AU. No islands. (To scale.)
A voyage chart drawn to scale in distance from the Sun. The harbour lamp at the bottom is the Sun, the two ships at the top are Voyager 1 and 2 today, and the diamonds mark your birthday.
Voyager 2: birthday 1 h 56 min → today 20 h 5 min
While I grew up: +153.8 AU (2.77 → 25.78 billion km)
Voyager 2: +131.2 AU (1.98 → 21.61 billion km)
| Milestone | Date (UT) | AU | My age |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voyager 2 launch | 1977-08-20 | 0 | before you were born |
| Voyager 1 launch | 1977-09-05 | 0 | before you were born |
| V1 passes Jupiter | 1979-03-05 | 5.3 | before you were born |
| V2 passes Jupiter | 1979-07-09 | 5.3 | before you were born |
| V1 passes Saturn | 1980-11-12 | 9.5 | before you were born |
| V2 passes Saturn | 1981-08-26 | 9.6 | before you were born |
| V2 passes Uranus | 1986-01-24 | 19.1 | 2 |
| V2 passes Neptune | 1989-08-25 | 30.2 | 5 |
| Pale Blue Dot | 1990-02-14 | 40.4 | 6 |
| V1 termination shock | 2004-12-16 | 94.0 | 20 |
| V1 enters interstellar space | 2012-08-25 | 121.6 | 28 |
| V2 enters interstellar space | 2018-11-05 | 119.0 | 34 |
| V1 one light-day away | 2026-11-18 | 172.4 | soon |
| My birthday | 1984-01-11 | 18.5 / 13.3 | 0 |
| Today | 2026-11-13 | 172.3 / 144.5 | 42 |
Birthday and today rows read Voyager 1 / Voyager 2. One light-day is Nov 18.
Pick one date and this free tool shows how many AU Voyager 1 and 2 were from the Sun that day, and how much farther they have gone since, as one voyage chart drawn to scale. Distances are NASA JPL Horizons data.
One old voyage chart. The harbour lamp at the bottom is the Sun, and up means farther from the Sun. Height is distance from the Sun, unchanged (R9); the top of the sheet is where Voyager 1 is today. The dotted route on the left is Voyager 1, the dashed one on the right is Voyager 2. An ink diamond marks your birthday, and the stretch travelled since then is solid ink.
Your birthday is taken at 12:00 UT; today is this device's date (R0). Distances come from daily NASA JPL Horizons values thinned to one per week, with a straight line between neighbours (R1). Weekly table; largest difference from daily Horizons 0.014 AU. Shown to 0.1 AU and 0.01 billion km.
The 13 milestone dates are UT dates from NASA and JPL pages (R2); islands and boundary lines sit at the table's distance on those dates. Your age then is full years on that date (R3); Feb 29 birthdays add a year on Mar 1 in common years. The small picture at the top right changes with the era of your birthday (R4): launch, giant planets, outward, interstellar.
The radio hello time is the distance from Earth that day divided by the speed of light, 299,792.458 km/s (R5), rounded to the minute above one minute. “While I grew up” is today's distance minus the birthday distance, or counted from launch if you were born earlier (R6). The headline (R7) depends on whether you were born before launch, on a launch day, or after.
The one line in the middle of the sheet (R8) is Voyager 1's distance today minus Voyager 2's distance at Neptune (30.2 AU). Nothing was visited in between.
The distance light covers in a day: 173.1446 AU. NASA says Voyager 1 reaches it on Nov 18, 2026, at 10:16 UT (NASA's page, the public event). Our table is daily, so it can only say “Nov 18”; the minute is NASA's.
Illustration: AI-generated (Gemini), edited by plusbeauxjours. Routes, island positions, diamonds, ships, the scale and all words are drawn by code from computed values.
| Voyager | Instrument | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cosmic Ray Subsystem (CRS) | Off (2025-02-25) |
| 1 | Low-Energy Charged Particles (LECP) | Off (2026-04-17) |
| 1 | Cameras (ISS) | Off (1990-02-14) |
| 2 | Cosmic Ray Subsystem (CRS) | On |
| 2 | Magnetometer (MAG) | On |
| 2 | Plasma Wave Subsystem (PWS) | On |
| 2 | Plasma Science (PLS) | Off (2024-09-26) |
| 2 | Low-Energy Charged Particles (LECP) | Off (2025-03-24) |
Only rows confirmed on NASA's page are copied. For Voyager 1's other instruments and future plans, see NASA's table. We never predict an end date.
Computed from NASA JPL Horizons trajectory data (fetched 2026-11-13). This is a table by date, not a live tracker; values after today are JPL's predicted trajectory.
Not made or endorsed by NASA or JPL. We never predict mission schedules or when instruments will be switched off.
The date you pick is used only inside this browser. Nothing is stored; analytics only gets the decade. A link you share carries the date, nothing else.
From NASA JPL's Horizons system: the position of Voyager 1 and 2 for every day at 12:00 UT. We ship one value per week and draw a straight line between them. Against the daily values the largest difference is under 0.014 AU.
The distance light travels in one day: about 173.1 AU, or 25.9 billion km. NASA says Voyager 1 reaches one light-day from Earth on Nov 18, 2026, at 10:16 UT. From then on a signal from Earth takes a full day to arrive.
Earth circles the Sun 1 AU out, so over a year the distance from Earth swings about 1 AU either side of the distance from the Sun. The chart uses distance from the Sun; only the radio travel time uses distance from Earth.
Yes. Height above the lamp (the Sun) is distance from the Sun, unchanged. That is why every planet Voyager visited sits in the bottom sixth and the rest of the sheet is nearly empty.
Both still talk to Earth. Science instruments are being switched off one by one to save power; NASA's instrument table, as updated April 17, 2026, is copied below. We do not guess at what comes next.
In US time it was Aug 25, 1981; in UT it was 01:21 on Aug 26. Every date here is UT. For Voyager 2 entering interstellar space we follow the JPL announcement: Nov 5, 2018.
Then you see how old you were on Aug 20, 1977, the day Voyager 2 left. The whole voyage fits inside your life, so both routes are solid ink from start to end.
That is another tool, Solar system on my birthday: the same date, with all eight planets drawn where they stood.
Last updated 2026-11-13 · Data: NASA JPL Horizons