Voyager 1, an unmanned space probe, was launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System and beyond.
Voyager 1 embarked on its journey into space on September 5, 1977, shortly following the launch of its counterpart, Voyager 2, on August 20. Voyager 1, charting a quicker trajectory toward the initial mission target of Jupiter, surpassed Voyager 2 on December 15, 1977, a sequence that informed their numerical naming.
The spacecraft made its closest approach to Jupiter on March 5, 1979, and to Saturn on November 12, 1980.
On February 14, 1990, after capturing the iconic "Pale Blue Dot" image among other "family photos" of the solar system, at a distance of 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) from the Sun, Voyager 1 deactivated its cameras to conserve power for its prolonged odyssey.
This image inspired the title of scientist Carl Sagan's book, "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space," in which he wrote: "Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us." Watch the YouTube video here.
In August 2012, Voyager 1 ventured into interstellar space, establishing itself as the farthest object made by humans.
Source: Voyager 1’s Pale Blue Dot, NASA