Voyager 1 reaches one light-day from Earth next week; NASA asks people to flash its call sign skyward after sunset Tuesday

NASA's Voyager 1 will become the first human-made object to reach one light-day from Earth, the distance light covers in 24 hours, at 2:16 a.m. PST next Wednesday, Nov. 18, NASA's mission pages say.  That is 16.094 billion miles.  To mark it, NASA is asking people everywhere to shine a light at the sky after sunset Tuesday, Nov. 17, and flash Voyager's call sign, VGR, in Morse code.  In San Jose the sun sets at 4:56 p.m. that day.

How far that is

Voyager 1 launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Sept. 5, 1977, flew past Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980, and in August 2012 crossed into interstellar space, beyond the heliosphere, the bubble of particles and magnetic fields the sun blows around itself.  Its distance is about 173 times Earth's distance from the sun, and it is moving away from the sun at about 38,000 mph, by our arithmetic from NASA's figures and JPL trajectory data.  A command radioed from Earth takes a full day to arrive, and the reply takes another day.

From out there the sun would look like an extremely bright star, about 14 times brighter than our full moon but roughly 30,000 times dimmer than it looks from Earth, by our arithmetic.  Earth would be far too faint to see.

Still working at 49

The craft runs on electricity made from the heat of decaying plutonium, because sunlight is too weak that far out for solar panels.  The supply shrinks every year, so engineers have switched instruments off one by one.  Two of its 10 science instruments still run, its magnetometer and plasma wave sensor, NASA's status table shows.  Its cameras have been off since 1990.

How to join in from San Jose

After sunset Tuesday, open NASA's automated flasher on a phone or tablet, or use a flashlight:  V is three quick flashes and one long one, G is two long and one quick, and R is quick, long, quick.  Repeat for about a minute.  Voyager 1 will then sit in the west-southwest, about a third of the way up the sky at 5:30 p.m., sliding toward the west and setting around 8:20 p.m., by our calculation from JPL data, so point that way if you want to aim.

The flashes themselves won't do anything for the spacecraft.  No flashlight beam could be detected that far away, and Voyager's working instruments measure particles and magnetic fields, not light.  The point is to raise awareness of the milestone:  NASA calls it “a worldwide celebration” and asks people to post photos or video of their signal on social media and tag @NASA.

The National Weather Service forecast issued at 5:22 a.m. Wednesday calls for a mostly sunny Tuesday with a high near 62, after rain Sunday and Monday.  The Tuesday-night forecast isn't out yet.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which built and runs both Voyagers, will hold a public discussion with mission managers at 9 a.m. PST Thursday, Nov. 19, streamed at nasa.gov/live, with a preview of a NASA+ documentary planned for the mission's 50th anniversary in 2027.

Source:  NASA, "NASA Invites Media, Public to Join Voyager 1 One-Light Day Activities" (Nov. 10, 2026); NASA Science, "Where are Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 Now?" (instrument table updated April 17, 2026), "Shine Bright for Voyager's Light-Day", Voyager 1 mission page and Voyager fact sheet; U.S. Naval Observatory, sun and moon data for San Jose, Nov. 17, 2026; National Weather Service, San Jose forecast, issued 5:22 a.m. PST Nov. 11; NASA/JPL Horizons trajectory data.  Speed, sky position, sun brightness and distance comparisons are the Daily News's own arithmetic.  Drafted by AI for San Jose using NASA source material.  NASA did not write or review this story.