• Cryptic Fawn@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 years ago

    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?

    • Zalack@startrek.website
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      2 years ago

      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.

      • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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        2 years ago

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

    • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
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      2 years ago

      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.

      • chiisana@lemmy.chiisana.net
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        2 years ago

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

        • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
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          2 years ago

          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.