How Many Miles Away Is Space

Voyager 1 was launched in 1977.

How many miles away is space. The number of miles required to reach outer space depends on whom is asked. In the summer of 2012 a nasa spacecraft named voyager 1 became the first human made object to enter interstellar space. According to data collected by the university of calgary space begins and the earth s atmosphere ends at 73 miles above the earth s surface.

The space industry lists 62 miles. As of 2015 it is over 12 161 300 000 miles away from earth. By the same token space is often defined as beginning at the lowest altitude at which satellites can maintain orbits for a reasonable time which is approximately 160 kilometers 100 miles above.

Nasa sets the boundary at 76 miles. Beyond our own galaxy lies a vast expanse of galaxies. Others place the marker at an astronomical 13 million miles.

The deeper we see into space the more galaxies we discover. By 1989 it had visited jupiter and saturn and crossed the orbits of but did not visit uranus and neptune. The kármán line an altitude of 100 km 62 mi above sea level is conventionally used as the start of outer space in space treaties and for aerospace records keeping.

The framework for international space law was established by the outer space treaty which entered into force on 10 october 1967. This distance can change however and has varied from 205 miles 330 km to a planned maximum of 248 miles 400 km. However other countries and agencies have a differing opinion on where space begins.

Nasa s web site will check the telemetry from the space station and gather its exact latitude and longitude as it orbits about 200 miles over the earth traveling 17 500 miles an hour making one full orbit every hour and a half.