Subject: [WSFA] Re: Voyager 1 anniversary
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2017 12:09:21 -0400

Thanks, Keith!=C2=A0 Those figures really re-inforce what Douglas Adams w=
rote:

"Space is big. Really 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, but that's just peanuts to space."

Traveling for 40 years, currently moving away at 17 km/sec, and it's
STILL not even 1 light-day away!=C2=A0 Wow.

-- Mike B.

On 9/5/2017 10:16 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> Today is the 40th anniversary of the launch of Voyager 1.
>
> For the past 19 years it has been the furthest manmade object from
> Earth, and nothing else that has been launched so far will ever
> overtake it.  Not Voyager 2 (which had been launched two weeks
> earlier), not Pioneers 10 or 11 (which had been launched about
> five years earlier), and not New Horizons (which flew by Pluto
> two years ago).
>
> It is 139.6 AU away from both Earth and the sun.  That's about 13
> billion miles, 20.9 billion kilometers, 19.3 light hours, or 0.0022
> light years.  This distance increases by 10 miles (17 km) every second.=

>
> Its transmitter and some of its scientific instruments are still
> active.  It of course takes 19.3 hours for a signal from it to reach
> Earth or vice versa.  Amateurs can pick up its signal and confirm its
> trajectory, so there's no chance that it's fake.
>
> It is expected to remain active for about 10 more years.
> Unfortunately it will take about 300 years to reach the Oort cloud,
> and tens of thousands of years before it is closer to another star
> than to the sun.  By some standards it's already in interstellar
> space, as it's apparently beyond the reach of the solar wind.  But
> it's not in darkness; it's still bright enough to comfortably read
> there, and it will remain so for centuries.
>
> It's very unlikely to ever run into anything, since space is so large
> in comparison with the sizes and quantities of the things in it.  It
> should remain intact and recognizable for tens of billions of years.
> Possibly much longer if the collision between our galaxy and Andromeda
> in four billion years tosses it into intergalactic space.  However,
> it's very unlikely to ever be found even if the universe is teeming
> with intelligent life.
>
> For more information, see
> https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/
> and
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1
>