--- title: Voyager 1: Where the heck IS it? description: The first human built object to exit the solar system may not be gone after all canonical: https://time.com/3023509/where-is-voyager-1/ author: Michael Lemonick article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-23T19:56:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:01:01.628Z article:section: Science og:title: Voyager 1: Where Have You Gone Joe DiMaggio? og:description: The first human built object to exit the solar system may not be gone after all og:url: https://time.com/3023509/where-is-voyager-1/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7f9f1fafd8a05d4/69869ce6cd804d3cfeccc0f9/voyager2_large.jpg?branch=production&width=800&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 800 og:image:height: 450 og:image:alt: Adios? Not so fast og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Voyager 1: Where Have You Gone Joe DiMaggio? twitter:description: The first human built object to exit the solar system may not be gone after all twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7f9f1fafd8a05d4/69869ce6cd804d3cfeccc0f9/voyager2_large.jpg?branch=production&width=800&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # So Where the Heck IS Voyager 1, Anyway? > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=0ae2188c-e850-4bfe-90eb-40865053084e&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Phone Home: NASA's Call Center [Watch (HLS stream): Phone Home: NASA's Call Center](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uGQRvwuW.m3u8) (3:48)  _Published 2014-01-08. NASA has been communicating with astronauts and spacecraft via the Deep Space Network for over 50 years._ by [Michael Lemonick](https://time.com/author/michael-d-lemonick/) ## Michael Lemonick Jul 23, 2014 7:56 PM UTC  Adios? Not so fast Adios? Not so fast NASA/JPL by [Michael Lemonick](https://time.com/author/michael-d-lemonick/) ## Michael Lemonick Jul 23, 2014 7:56 PM UTC For a space probe that’s at least two decades beyond its sell-by date, Voyager 1 has a pretty impressive record of keeping itself in the news. Even more impressive is the fact that the topic is always the same. Either the aging craft, [launched in 1977](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,915353,00.html) to explore first [Jupiter](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,947037,00.html), then [Saturn](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,947037,00.html), has left the Solar System, en route to an eternal journey into deep space, or it hasn’t. In [2003](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,538995,00.html), for example, the reports were that Voyager had indeed left. But in [2010](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,538995,00.html), it was merely getting _ready_ to leave. Same thing in [2012](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,538995,00.html). Then, last year, it [definitely departed](http://science.time.com/2013/09/12/adios-voyager-1-elvis-may-truly-have-left-the-solar-system/)—but it didn’t leave the Solar System exactly. What it did do was depart the heliosphere, the region where the charged particles of the solar wind stream freely outward from the Sun before slamming into the particle clouds of interstellar space to form a shock wave known as the heliopause. If you’re not confused enough already, you will be. It turns out that nobody actually knows whether Voyager really is outside the heliosphere at all, since all of the tests to date have been indirect, looking for charged particles and other clues that suggest but don’t prove anything. So now a pair of Voyager team scientists have proposed what they insist is a definitive test, in a paper accepted for publication in the journal _Geophysical Research Letters._ If the spacecraft is still inside the heliosphere, they say, it should encounter something called the “current sheet,” a place where the Sun’s magnetic field flips from north to south. Even Voyager’s aging instruments could detect that event directly. “If that happens, I think if anyone still believes Voyager 1 is in the interstellar medium, they will really have something to explain,” said co-author George Gloeckler, a space scientist at the University of Michigan, in a press release.The moment of truth, Gloeckler believes, should come sometime in 2016. Unless it doesn’t, of course. That will mean Voyager left last year after all. But even if the field reversal does happen, it could mean that the heliosphere itself is temporarily expanding, and has briefly caught up with Voyager. So Voyager left, but that, as Michael Corleone famously said in The Godfather, Part III, “[Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCUQtwIwAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DUneS2Uwc6xw&ei=sgXQU%5FrSMYu3yASVwYDgAQ&usg=AFQjCNHQv5Qn%5Fn%5FKA9FnH%5FQhOYy4Fli2Ig&sig2=yd4rdACDOaYchvK7aDcX8g).” Whether Voyager is inside or outside the heliosphere, there’s no dispute about one thing: it has _not_ left the Solar System, which is the collection of objects that orbit the Sun. The probe is currently about three times as distant as Pluto—but the orbiting Oort Cloud of proto-comets is far more distant than that. Voyager won’t cross that line for many thousands of years. And at that point, if anyone’s still interested, you can expect a brand new flurry of “is it or isn’t it” stories. ## Transcript [00:01] >>On a rotating planet, a single antenna could never [00:04] keep in constant contact with a space craft at any great [00:07] distance. For that reason, the Deep Space Network has [00:11] three sets of antennas located about 120 degrees [00:15] apart around the globe; Madrid in Spain, Goldstone [00:19] in California, and Canberra in Australia. At [00:24] no point is the spacecraft vast in blackout. The [00:29] Deep Space Network first went online in December of [00:32] 1963 and has been in constant use ever since. [00:36] At the moment, it's communicating with more than 30 [00:39] Deep Space spacecraft. Spacecraft [00:43] and human beings have been traveling to the moon for [00:46] more than 50 years now and most of the images with [00:49] the small exception of the ones hand carried by [00:52] astronauts on traditional film were sent back through [00:56] the Deep Space Network. [00:57] >>Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle [01:01] has landed. [01:02] >>The original and iconic scenes of Neil Armstrong [01:05] stepping on the surface of the Sea of Tranquility, that [01:08] came through the DSN. [01:09] >>That's one small step for man, one giant [01:14] leap for mankind. But I was [ unk ] [01:18] -[ unk ] images of Apollo 17 taking off. [01:21] >>Three, two, one, ignition. [01:22] >>We're on our way, Houston. [01:24] >>And the first colored broadcast from the surface of [01:27] the moon. [01:28] >>Okay, Houston, I'm gonna [ unk ] chamber now. [01:32] >>Roger, out. [01:33] >>Richard Nixon may be the only president ever to [01:36] communicate by the Deep Space Network when he [01:38] spoke to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the [01:41] surface of the moon in July of 1969. [01:46] >>Hello Neil and Buzz. I'm talking to you by telephone [01:49] from the Oval Room at the White House. [01:52] >>Transmissions from the moon to earth take about a [01:55] second and a half to get here, which is about as long [01:57] as it takes light to travel to 239, 000 miles [02:01] from here to there. For [02:05] Mars, it's a different story. The distance between Mars [02:09] and the Earth changes depending upon where they are [02:11] in their orbits. And when the Curiosity Rover landed in [02:14] 2012, the two planets were about 154 million [02:19] miles apart, which means it took close to 14 minutes [02:23] for a signal including an image to come from there to [02:26] here. -[ unk ] confirmed. Proceed to Mars. [02:34] >>Color images don't come in in full color. The color [02:37] has to be added later as data's impact through [02:40] different filters and at different frequencies is [02:43] interrupted to add hues and shades to what's originally [02:47] a black and white image. Over the course of time, the [02:50] quality of the photographs has gotten strikingly [02:54] sharper. The first images from Mars were grainy fly [02:57] over shots. By the time Curiosity landed in 2012, [03:02] the pictures that were coming home were in some [03:04] cases almost indistinguishable from high- quality [03:07] photography taken in the maizes and bad lands of the [03:11] southwest. A [03:21] network that was built in 1963 has been used by [03:25] generations of spacecraft that couldn't even have been [03:28] dreamed of back then. 50 years from now when the [03:32] DSN is 100 years old, it may be the source of [03:36] communications from human beings living and working [03:40] on Mars. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3023509/where-is-voyager-1/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3023509/where-is-voyager-1/"},"headline":"So Where the Heck IS Voyager 1, Anyway?","datePublished":"2014-07-23T19:56:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:01:01.628Z","description":"The first human built object to exit the solar system may not be gone after all","url":"https://time.com/3023509/where-is-voyager-1/","keywords":["Space","solar system"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7f9f1fafd8a05d4/69869ce6cd804d3cfeccc0f9/voyager2_large.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Michael Lemonick","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/michael-d-lemonick/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7f9f1fafd8a05d4/69869ce6cd804d3cfeccc0f9/voyager2_large.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Adios? 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