this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Once both spacecraft run out of power - expected sometime after 2025 - they will continue roaming through space.

Why does thinking about this make me a bit sad?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

If we take a moment to anthropomorphize Voyager here - It kinda is. Think of the pure vastness of space. Remember that all of the planets in our Solar System can fit between the Earth and our own Moon with a little space to spare.

Look up to the sky, point in any direction and (with the magical ability to fly up and through space) go in that direction without changing course, and there is an almost 100% guarantee you will never run into anything. Sure you may see things go by as you travel, but its just..never ending travel, fast as shit, through endless space until you just..stop and die.

Voyager's just gonna keep going, and going...and going. It's material will eventually break down I assume, due to exposure, and perhaps fall to pieces, but...it'll keep going.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

What the fuck I’m fucking drunk holy shit

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Is that from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (4 children)

exposure to what? it will keep floating forever.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would suspect at some point it will come into contact with other matter but yea... That could take a very, very long time.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

sure, that could happen, although extremely unlikely. but never say never I guess!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Given an infinite amount of time, I would say the chance are not just likely, but certainly 100% chance of happening

[–] Scubus 1 points 1 year ago

Not neccasarily. You have to remember that space is expanding. That means that eventually the probes would undergo the big rip where they are torn apart. Prior to that however, they would be so far from anything that it would be impossible for them to interact with anything.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Definitely, it will happen at some point. Probably not for an unfathomably long amount of time, however.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe a fucking black hole will suck it even.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Hey you leave my mom out of this.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

radiation in space is strong

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Space exposure. I'm not what anyone would typically classify as "smart" by any stretch but I have to imagine being out traveling in interstellar space for (eventually) centuries will end up in some kind of eventual damage, be it either from idk fuck ass Space Radiation™, or micro asteroid impacts, or anything else.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

micrometeorites

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The cool thing about Voyager is that it has a record of information about Earth, etched in gold, with instructions on how to read the data it contains back.

Even once it powers down, it's still on a mission. If millions of years from now intelligent alien life ever encounters it, they will know who we were and that we existed.

It's our handprint on the cosmic wall.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

They will likely be the last evidence that the human race ever existed.

In 2-3 billion years the sun will leave the main sequence steady state it has been in. This will end in it turning into a red giant, and engulfing earth and destroying all record we existed.

Meanwhile, the journey of Voyager 1 and 2 will have only just begun. They will continue moving through the expanding universe for at least 3,000,000 Billion years.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wouldn’t friction (however little in deep outer space) eventually decay the crafts way before Earth is engulfed by the Sun?

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Interspace is empty on a level that is hard to imagine.

There are 2.652×10^25 molecules in one m^3 of air.

That is 26520000000000000000000000.

In intellar space?

The is 1.

IE: the probe would hit more atoms in one second on earth moving at 1 m/s than it would travelling the entire age of the universe so far through interstellar space.

Even the space between the planets is thick with matter by comparison.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

That is indeed mind boggling. Thank you for sharing this with me. I did not realize it is that thin out there!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

265.2 septillion, if I'm not mistaken. Mind-boggling!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

I don't think this comparison is really valid. If you are going through the molecules of air at the speed voyager is currently going it would vaporize. If you're comparing it to more terrestrial speeds, It also ignores the amount of energy imparted by that 1 atom due to the high velocity. The high velocity also means it encounters those singular atoms and a higher rate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

If we never send a spaceprobe ever again that is

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

If we are lucky the earth might survive after the sun becomes a red giant. As the sun expands because its gravity is weakening which means the hold on earth will be weaker and the earth will move away from the sun. Hopefully the speed we move away is equal to or faster than the suns expansion.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It'll be back as Vger after a couple hundred years and try to kill us, no biggie.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Well the last Voyager came back from deep space with a sexy borg lady, so I for one look forward to their return.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It'll miss us by 2 degrees it seems.