The Farthest

At the heart of one of humanity’s most extraordinary achievements in space exploration lie NASA’s Voyager missions. Launched in 1977, the twin spacecraft Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were originally conceived as a short-term planetary mission to study the giant planets of the solar system. However, their journey evolved into one of the most enduring and impactful feats in modern science.

What began as an ambitious attempt to take advantage of a rare planetary alignment in order to visit Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune turned into a mission of unprecedented discovery. The Voyagers not only sent back never-before-seen images of these planets and their moons, but they also forever changed our understanding of the solar system. They revealed active volcanoes on Io, hidden oceans beneath Europa’s icy surface, and bizarre storms on Neptune—just a few of their most astonishing findings.

But behind these scientific achievements are equally remarkable human stories. Engineers, scientists, and visionaries worked for decades to design, launch, and keep these spacecraft operational. The Voyager mission was not only a technical triumph, but also a testament to perseverance, ingenuity, and international collaboration. Even today, more than 45 years after their launch, both probes continue to transmit data as they venture into interstellar space—farther than any other human-made object has ever traveled.