Voyager 1 is now so far from Earth that a signal traveling at the speed of light takes more than 22 hours to reach it — so when engineers send a command, they can wait nearly two days to know whether the spacecraft responded

Sending a command to Voyager 1 is closer to mailing a letter than placing a phone call. The probe, launched in September 1977, is now roughly 16 billion miles from Earth, heading away from the Sun at roughly 38,000 miles per hour. In November 2026, Voyager 1 will become the first human-made object to pass [...] The post Voyager 1 is now so far from Earth that a signal traveling at the speed of light takes more than 22 hours to reach it — so when engineers send a command, they can wait nearly two