Heliocentric positions of the five interstellar probes (squares) and other bodies (circles) until 2020, with launch and flyby dates. Markers denote positions on 1 January of each year, with every fifth year labelled. Plot 1 is viewed from the north ecliptic pole, to scale. Plots 2 to 4 are third-angle projections at 20% scale. In the SVG file, hover over a trajectory or orbit to highlight it and its associated launches and flybys.
Voyager 2 is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, as a part of the Voyager program. It was launched on a trajectory towards the gas giantsJupiter and Saturn and enabled further encounters with the ice giantsUranus and Neptune. It remains the only spacecraft to have visited either of the ice giant planets, and was the third of five spacecraft to achieve Solar escape velocity, which will allow it to leave the Solar System. It has been sending scientific data to Earth for 46 years, 10 months, 10 days, making it the oldest active space probe.[4] Launched 16 days before its twin Voyager 1, the primary mission of the spacecraft was to study the outer planets and its extended mission is to study interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere.
The probe entered the interstellar medium on November 5, 2018, at a distance of 119.7 AU (11.1 billion mi; 17.9 billion km) from the Sun[6] and moving at a velocity of 15.341 km/s (34,320 mph)[7] relative to the Sun. Voyager 2 has left the Sun's heliosphere and is traveling through the interstellar medium, though still inside the Solar System, joining Voyager 1, which had reached the interstellar medium in 2012.[8][9][10][11]Voyager 2 has begun to provide the first direct measurements of the density and temperature of the interstellar plasma.[12]