Voyager 2
What is Voyager 2?
Probes & telescopes· Launched 1977-08-20 – 49th year in flight (interstellar). The only spacecraft to visit all four giant planets, riding a once-in-176-years alignment on its Grand Tour.
The orbit of Voyager 2 at this moment: https://nowsky.org/solar/orbit?fw=probe%3Avoyager2 — replayed live, no login.
Mission timeline
Spacecraft specs
| Launch | 1977-08-20 |
|---|---|
| Legacy | only visitor to Uranus & Neptune |
| Distance | ~144 AU (as of Sept 2026) |
| Speed | 15.3 km/s |
| Status | interstellar cruise — instruments switched off one by one, contact targeted into the 2030s |
Figures are representative approximations. Distances that change over time are extrapolated from 2026-05-01. Source: compiled from NASA and IAU public data.
Frequently asked
- When did Voyager 2 launch?
- 1977-08-20.
- How far is Voyager 2 from Earth?
- ~144 AU (as of Sept 2026).
- How fast is Voyager 2 travelling?
- 15.3 km/s.
- What is the status of Voyager 2 now?
- interstellar cruise — instruments switched off one by one, contact targeted into the 2030s.
Uranus's tilted magnet, a Voyager 2 discovery
Until Voyager 2 passed Uranus in 1986 nobody knew whether the planet had a magnetic field. It did, but a strange one — tilted 59° from the rotation axis, with the magnet's centre displaced from the planet's centre by a third of the radius. Compared with Earth's field, tilted 11°, it was a wholly different structure, and it became the starting point for the idea that the field arises not in a liquid-metal core but in a conducting layer of water, ammonia and methane ices.
Three years later Neptune showed a field tilted 47° and likewise offset, revealing this as a common trait of the ice giants. A 2024 reanalysis of Voyager 2's data found that a strong gust of solar wind had squeezed Uranus's magnetosphere unusually small during the flyby — forty-year-old observations still yielding new conclusions. Until a Uranus orbiter flies, that single day of data is all there is.
The mission in depth
Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft ever to visit all four giant planets: Jupiter (1979), Saturn (1981), Uranus (1986), Neptune (1989) — a single Grand Tour granted by a once-in-176-years alignment.
For Uranus and Neptune it remains the only visitor; most of what textbooks say about the ice giants comes from those few days in the 1980s. In 2018 it followed its twin into interstellar space.
It now recedes southward below the ecliptic at 15 km/s. Replay the twelve-year, four-planet trajectory in the Orbit view — a masterpiece of navigation.
Voyager 2's Uranus and Neptune encounters remain one of a kind — every close-up we have of both planets was taken in a few days of 1986 and 1989, riding a planetary alignment that comes once in 176 years. It crossed into interstellar space in 2018, and by switching instruments off one at a time NASA aims to keep the conversation going into the 2030s.
Related
Figures are representative approximations. Simulated positions use J2000 mean elements.