NASA announced Shine Bright for Voyager’s Light-Day, a worldwide event set for Tuesday, November 17, asking people to shine flashlights or smartphones toward the sky after sunset in Morse code V-G-R, Popular Science reported. The celebration is scheduled before Voyager 1 reaches one light-day from Earth. That milestone arrives on November 18. The agency’s call sign for the signal is V-G-R.
Participants are asked to blink the signal after sunset on November 17. Morse code is a system of dots and dashes used to send messages. The agency built a dedicated site that flashes the VGR Morse code automatically for participants who would rather not blink the signal themselves. The craft will reach one light-day from Earth. The date is November 18, and the time is 5:18 a.m. EST. After that point, all future round-trip messages will require at least 24 hours.
A light-day is the distance light travels in a day. This milestone marks a specific point in Voyager 1‘s continuing journey through deep space. Voyager 1 became the farthest human-made object to travel beyond Earth in 1998. It has been breaking its own record for 18 years, according to Popular Science. The source calls this long-running achievement monumental because of the craft’s age and original design limits.
NASA originally intended Voyager 1 to survive only a few years in deep space. Thanks to recent equipment adjustments, NASA expects at least a few more years of operation from Voyager 1 before it goes dark. The agency ties the extra operating time to those adjustments but does not say when they happened. After Voyager 1 goes dark, it may become inert technology. It will remain an interstellar monument to human curiosity and creativity in interstellar space. Interstellar space is the region between stars. NASA described the event as “A simple act.
A shared moment. A celebration of humanity’s farthest reach.”
Join the discussion