Spaceflightpedia · special section

In numbers

Distances, clocks and records of the Space Age — most of them counted live, while you read.

Coming up · 18 November 2026

T−40 days

until Voyager 1 is one light-day from Earth. Nothing built by people has ever been that far.

Voyager 1 article →

Today · Friday: 9 October 2026
day of the Space Age: 25,207
You have been reading for: 0 s

01 · Right now · the farthest anything made by people has gone

Voyager 1 is this far from home, and still going.

from Earth · computed live

25,791,988,067 km

A radio signal takes: 23 h 53 min
Moving away from Earth right now at: 37.7 km/s
Speed, relative to the Sun: ≈ 61,000 km/h
In flight since 5 September 1977: 49 years, 33 days
In interstellar space since: 25 August 2012

Send it a signal.

Your message

Symbolic — nothing leaves your browser. The message stays on this device; the line shows where it would be now.

Earth

ISS1.36 ms

Geostationary119 ms

Moon1.3 s

Sun8 min 19 s

Mars12 min 40 s

Jupiter43 min 14 s

Saturn1 h 19 min

Neptune4 h 10 min

Heliopause16 h 51 min

Voyager 123 h 53 min

Approximate logarithmic scale of light-time. Planets: mean distance from the Sun; heliopause: Voyager 1’s crossing; Voyager: distance from Earth.

Voyager 1 article →

02 · Mission clocks · live

Still running.

People living in orbit, without a break25y 341d 03:26:08Since Expedition 1 docked with the ISS on 2 November 2000.ISS orbits since then≈ 146,823Laps of the Earth with a crew aboard, at roughly 93 minutes each.Curiosity, on Mars≈ 5,038Approximate elapsed Martian days since landing on 6 August 2012; not the mission’s local sol number.Perseverance, on Mars≈ 2,003Approximate elapsed Martian days since landing in Jezero Crater; not the mission’s local sol number.Voyager 2, in flight17,946 daysThe only visitor to Uranus and Neptune, launched sixteen days before its twin.Hubble, in orbit13,316 daysReleased from Discovery’s payload bay on STS-31, 25 April 1990.James Webb, at L21,719 daysHolding station 1.5 million km from Earth since 24 January 2022.Since the last footstep on the Moon19,657 daysGene Cernan climbed back into Challenger, Apollo 17’s lander, on 14 December 1972.The Space Age itself25,206 daysSince Sputnik 1 launched on 4 October 1957.

03 · Counting from the moment you opened this page

Since you arrived.

0 kmflown by the International Space Station, at roughly 400 km above Earth, at 7.66 km every second.
0 kmadded to Voyager 1’s distance from the Sun.
0.000 %of the Earth completed by the ISS crew — a full lap takes about 93 minutes.
0 kmtravelled by the Earth itself — and you with it — around the Sun.
0 kmcovered by Parker Solar Probe at its closest pass to the Sun — the fastest anything built by people has flown.

04 · The record book

Twelve, and other numbers worth knowing.

12peoplehave walked on the Moon — all American, all between July 1969 and December 1972.24peopleflew to the Moon on Apollo — Lovell, Young and Cernan twice. In April 2026 the four-person Artemis II crew joined them.382kilogramsof Moon rock, core and dust brought home by the six Apollo landings.437daysValeri Polyakov’s single flight aboard Mir, 1994–95 — still the longest ever.39,897km/hthe fastest humans have ever travelled: Apollo 10, falling back to Earth in May 1969.406,771kilometresthe farthest people have ever been from Earth: Artemis II, beyond the far side of the Moon, 6 April 2026 — Apollo 13’s record fell after 56 years.108minutesYuri Gagarin’s entire flight, once around the Earth, on 12 April 1961.73secondsfrom lift-off to the loss of Challenger on STS-51-L, 28 January 1986.1CzechoslovakVladimír Remek, Soyuz 28, 1978 — the first person in space from neither the USSR nor the USA.135missionsflown by the Space Shuttle in thirty years, from Columbia in 1981 to Atlantis in 2011.21layersin the A7L Moon suit, hand-sewn at ILC Dover — part of the company behind Playtex underwear.58centimetresthe diameter of Sputnik 1, the polished sphere that started it all.

05 · Try it · surface gravity

What would you weigh out there?

Your weight on Earth

Your mass never changes — only the pull. The jump is a hypothetical calculation using the same energy as a 50 cm jump on Earth, ignoring drag.

WorldWeightJump

Mercury26 kg1.3 m

Venus63 kg55 cm

Earth70 kg50 cm

Moon12 kg3.0 m

Mars27 kg1.3 m

Ceres2.0 kg17.2 m

Jupiter177 kg20 cm

Io13 kg2.7 m

Saturn75 kg47 cm

Titan9.7 kg3.6 m

Uranus62 kg56 cm

Neptune80 kg44 cm

Pluto4.4 kg7.9 m

Bars on a square-root scale, so the Moon and Jupiter both fit. For the gas giants, gravity is given at the cloud tops.

06 · Try it · a scale model you could walk

Shrink the Solar System.

If the Earth were

The ISS0.51 mmabove its surface — closer than the thickness of the peel on an orange that size.

The Moon4.4 mmacross, held 48 cm away. Nine Apollo crews and one Artemis crew have crossed that gap.

The Sun1.7 macross — and 188 m from your Earth.

Neptune’s orbit6 kmfrom the Sun. Voyager 2 took twelve years to get there.

Voyager 132 kmfrom home, today — the whole of human reach.

The nearest star50,447 kmto Proxima Centauri. At Voyager’s speed: about 75,000 years.

07 · Orbital launch attempts, worldwide · 1957–2025

Sixty years of ups and downs, then a wall.

330

launch attempts in 2025

More orbital launch attempts than in any year before — by a wide margin.

Attempts, including failures. Source: J. McDowell, General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects; Wikipedia. Hover or tap a bar; arrow keys step through the years.

How these numbers are made

Live figures are computed in your browser from published launch dates, orbital periods and speeds — they are close approximations, not telemetry. Voyager 1’s distance comes from its speed relative to the Sun and from where the Earth is on its orbit, so it swings by more than a hundred million kilometres over a year: around March, the probe actually gets closer to us. Spotted something off? Write to us.

NASA: Voyager 1 and the light-day milestone