Space Travel Time
How long to reach Mars, Pluto, or Andromeda?
Discover how long it would take to travel to other planets, moons, and deep-space destinations at the speeds of real spacecraft — from the slow Apollo missions to the fastest probes ever launched. Select a destination and spacecraft speed to see travel time at different velocities, from a commercial plane to Voyager 1 — the fastest human-made object ever.
💡 Voyager 1, launched in 1977, travels at about 61,000 km/h — yet it would still take over 73,000 years to reach the nearest star system.
Choose destination
🌙
Distance to Moon
384,400 km
Walking5 km/h
8.8 years11.0% of a human lifetime
Car100 km/h
160 days0.5% of a human lifetime
Jet Airliner900 km/h
18 daysSR-71 Blackbird3,529 km/h
5 daysISS27,600 km/h
13.9 hoursNew Horizons58,536 km/h
6.6 hoursParker Solar Probe692,000 km/h
33 minutesStarship (planned)108,000 km/h
3.6 hoursLight Speed1.08B km/h
0 minutesPerspective
- 💡 Light from the Sun takes 8.3 minutes to reach Earth
- 🚀 The fastest human-made object (Parker Solar Probe) reaches 0.064% of light speed
- ⏳ Even at light speed, reaching Andromeda would take 2.5 million years
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Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to travel to Mars?
A modern chemical rocket on a Hohmann transfer orbit takes 6–9 months to reach Mars, depending on launch window. NASA's Perseverance took 7 months in 2020–21. SpaceX Starship aims for ~6 months. Future nuclear-thermal propulsion could cut travel time to 3–4 months, and theoretical fusion drives to under 6 weeks.
How fast is Voyager 1?
Voyager 1 is the fastest human-made object on a solar-escape trajectory, travelling at about 17 km/s (61,000 km/h or 38,000 mph) relative to the Sun. It is now over 24 billion km from Earth — more than 162 astronomical units — and crossed the heliopause into interstellar space in 2012.
How long would it take to drive to the Moon?
The Moon is about 384,400 km away. At a constant 100 km/h (60 mph), a hypothetical car would take 160 days of non-stop driving — a little over five months. For comparison, Apollo 11 reached the Moon in 76 hours, and a future Starship mission could do it in roughly the same time.
How long would it take to reach Proxima Centauri?
At Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s), reaching the nearest star at 4.24 light-years would take about 73,000 years. Even at 10% the speed of light — far beyond any propulsion humanity has demonstrated — the trip would take 42 years. Breakthrough Starshot's laser-pushed lightsails aim for 20% lightspeed, reducing transit to 20 years.