In 1977, NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft began their pioneering journey across the Solar System to visit the giant outer planets. Now, the Voyagers are hurtling through unexplored territory on their road trip beyond our Solar System. Along the way, they are measuring the interstellar medium, the mysterious environment between stars that is filled with the debris from long-dead stars. Voyager 1 became the most distant spacecraft from Earth in 1998, and no other spacecraft launched, to date, has a chance of catching it. (Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon)

Voyager 1 has left the Solar System. Will we ever overtake it?

In all of human history, only 5 spacecraft had the right trajectory to exit the Solar System. Will they ever catch Voyager 1?

Exiting the Solar System isn’t easy.