Where is Voyager 2 going? And when will it get there?

Where is Voyager 2 going? On November 27, 2023, on the platform X, the spacecraft’s handlers answered this question. You’ll find their answers below, or in the video above.

1/ In answer to 'where are you going?': ?The journey will effectively end (for you) when my power supply is so low that I can't operate any of my instruments. The EOM command will shut down communication with Earth. When? Within the next few years.

— NSFVoyager2 (@NSFVoyager2) November 28, 2023

3/ The final goal was 2 send radio signals back 2 Earth through Triton's atmosphere, yielding data on its composition & density. 2 get that alignment right, I was sent skimming over Neptune's leading side & looping below the ecliptic plane to pass through Triton's radio shadow!

— NSFVoyager2 (@NSFVoyager2) November 28, 2023

5/ …but the reality is that 1.65 light-years is still an insurmountable distance. Every other star I will pass within the next _million_ years will be more than 2 light years from me. It is very likely that I will not _ever_ encounter anything.

— NSFVoyager2 (@NSFVoyager2) November 28, 2023

7/ I’ll see the last of the stars extinguish,& the flashes of evaporating black holes. The matter that I was made of will reach a time where it’ll simply fade away,along with the last of the longest wavelengths of light,stretched out by the expansion & cold death of the universe.

— NSFVoyager2 (@NSFVoyager2) November 28, 2023

The 2024 lunar calendars are here! Best Christmas gifts in the universe! Check ’em out here.

Voyager 1 and 2

Launched in 1977, the Voyagers 1 and 2 are the most distant human-made objects from Earth. And so they are likely to remain, for now. The New Horizons spacecraft – launched in 2006 – left Earth far faster than any outbound probe before it. But it won’t overtake the Voyagers as the most distant human-made object from Earth, because the two Voyagers received gravity assists from mighty Jupiter and Saturn.

Voyager 1 is slightly more distant than Voyager 2. Astronomers and space fans sometimes measure distances across our solar system in Earth-sun units, called astronomical units, or AU. A single AU is about 93 million miles (150 million km). Voyager 1 is 162 AU from Earth. And Voyager 2 is 135 AU from Earth.

You can keep track of their progress here.

For a few months each year, the distance between each Voyager spacecraft and Earth shrinks. That’s because – as the Voyagers streak away from our sun at more than 30,000 miles per hour (48,000 kph) – Earth is also moving, pursuing our yearly orbit around the sun. As we loop around the sun, sometimes we’re going in a direction opposite that of one or another Voyager. And sometimes when we’re hurtling through space – traveling at our own speed of 67,000 mph (107,000 km/h) – we’re hot on the heels of one or another Voyager. And so the distance between it and us decreases … until we head back the other way again, pulled inexorably by our sun’s gravity.

In 2012, Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to leave the solar system. Then, in 2018, Voyager 2 crossed the heliopause, the boundary of our sun’s influence, heading toward deep space. In 2021, Voyager 1 sent back a message that it’s hearing a faint, monotone hum of interstellar space.

Earlier this year, NASA said that it would be extending the science mission of Voyager 2 for another three years. It found a way to conserve power on the spacecraft and keep it communicating with us a bit longer.

And so Voyager 1 should keep communicating until 2025. Excellent work, for a spacecraft scheduled to last only four years.

Bottom line: Where is Voyager 2 going? It’s not aimed for any particular star, but in 40,000 years it will pass within 1.65 light-years of the star Ross 248.