It will be 1 light year away in another 18000 years or so. Thankfully the information about earth is from the 1970s when things were still looking great.
If you think that things were ‘looking great’ in the 1970s, you really have some rosy glasses. The late 60s and early 70s featured such ‘great’ things like the Vietnam War, Noxon’s presidency / Watergate, the Iranian Revolution, and the Cuyahoga River fire
https://www.history.com/articles/epa-earth-day-cleveland-cuyahoga-river-fire-clean-water-act . Also the Cold War.
It keeps being impressive stuff. I would like to have read about possible plans to extend its active lifespan. How long is considered feasible? What is the ultimately limiting factor? Energy? Communication?
Theoretically the latter might be extended by launching a relay station in its path I suppose but no doubt this comes with its own complications and limitations and cost that may not be justified by the limited use its data may provide. There are no easy matters when it comes to hurling machines into space and have it guaranteed to work reliably..
I’m going to make an uneducated guess and suppose that a relay probe wouldn’t do much considering the size of the radio telescope used to transmit and receive to voyager 1. A relay probe would be too small to even detect a signal from voyager 1. This is not the real problem as someone else pointed out, the computer requires more power than the transceiver. The power requirements for the computer in voyager 1 will fail to be met by the power generated by the RTG before that same RTG will fail to power the transceiver.
It just shows how far things are in space and why we will likely never get past probes for exploration outside of our solar system, and not really very far at that in the whole scale of things.
While Voyager(s) are significantly past the inner planets they are still about 30,000 years away from clearing the Oort cloud which is the edge(Arguably) of the solar system.
mycall | 4 hours ago
Its wild to think it would need the whole trip another 364 times to be a light year.
November 18th should be Voyager Day.
woodbanger04 | an hour ago
It will be 1 light year away in another 18000 years or so. Thankfully the information about earth is from the 1970s when things were still looking great.
theObfuscator | 40 minutes ago
If you think that things were ‘looking great’ in the 1970s, you really have some rosy glasses. The late 60s and early 70s featured such ‘great’ things like the Vietnam War, Noxon’s presidency / Watergate, the Iranian Revolution, and the Cuyahoga River fire https://www.history.com/articles/epa-earth-day-cleveland-cuyahoga-river-fire-clean-water-act . Also the Cold War.
woodbanger04 | 21 minutes ago
Would you rather it be updated to reflect the current world conditions and the total lack of anonymity?
I am not attacking your statement, because you do have a valid point.
Fuzzy974 | 19 minutes ago
Does that account for the fact that it didn't fly straight out from Earth, but had to slingshot between planets to gain speed?
PS: And for the expansion of the universe?! 🤣
HumanWithComputer | 2 hours ago
It keeps being impressive stuff. I would like to have read about possible plans to extend its active lifespan. How long is considered feasible? What is the ultimately limiting factor? Energy? Communication?
Theoretically the latter might be extended by launching a relay station in its path I suppose but no doubt this comes with its own complications and limitations and cost that may not be justified by the limited use its data may provide. There are no easy matters when it comes to hurling machines into space and have it guaranteed to work reliably..
SookiSwann | 2 hours ago
It’s limited by the RTG powering it.
bellatricked | an hour ago
I’m going to make an uneducated guess and suppose that a relay probe wouldn’t do much considering the size of the radio telescope used to transmit and receive to voyager 1. A relay probe would be too small to even detect a signal from voyager 1. This is not the real problem as someone else pointed out, the computer requires more power than the transceiver. The power requirements for the computer in voyager 1 will fail to be met by the power generated by the RTG before that same RTG will fail to power the transceiver.
imjustsurfin | an hour ago
An OUTSTANDING achievement!!!
I salutes EVERYONE who worked, and continue to work, on this mission!
MIND BLOWING!!!
Shot_Squash_9772 | 22 minutes ago
It just shows how far things are in space and why we will likely never get past probes for exploration outside of our solar system, and not really very far at that in the whole scale of things.
While Voyager(s) are significantly past the inner planets they are still about 30,000 years away from clearing the Oort cloud which is the edge(Arguably) of the solar system.