Voyager 1

Voyager 1 is humanity's farthest outpost, having entered interstellar space in August 2012 after launching on 5 September 1977. It conducted groundbreaking flybys of Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980, revealing active volcanoes on Io and intricate rings around Saturn. As of 2026, Voyager 1 is over 24 billion kilometers from Earth and still transmitting data, making it both the most distant spacecraft and the longest-operating scientific mission in history, at 49 years. Voyager 1's legacy as the first interstellar probe outshines Hubble Space Telescope in terms of sheer distance achieved.