Voyager missions

NASA's Voyager 1, now 25.76 billion kilometres (16.01 billion miles) from Earth, is on track to become the first human-made object to sit one full light-day away, a milestone expected in roughly 49 days and 18 hours. Its twin, Voyager 2, trails at 21.55 billion kilometres. Space watchers are sharing live distance trackers as the anniversary of the mission's 1977 launch continues, marking the probe's steady march into interstellar space.

Saturn's hexagon, a giant six-sided jet stream roughly 29,000 kilometres wide at the planet's north pole, is back in the spotlight. First spotted by the Voyager missions, the storm has fascinated researchers for decades, and its exact cause remains debated. New discussion of the phenomenon is drawing fresh attention to what scientists do and do not understand about the strange atmospheric structure.