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Where are the Voyagers?

voyager.jpl.nasa.gov

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Re: Where are the Voyagers?

#22

Post by ars »

It's sad to think they only have about 9 years of life remaining before they run out of power.

And only a couple of years of useful life remaining.

Re: Where are the Voyagers?

#23

Post by hanoz »

This is all very well, but where are they in the night sky is what I would like to know.

And no I'm not expecting to see them, just to think about them in the right direction.

Re: Where are the Voyagers?

#24

Post by ars »

cyberferret wrote: post #20

Anyone know why in the second video (side plane view of solar system), they show 4 separate items moving out into deep space? I could pick Voyager 1 and 2, but no idea what the other 2 probes are?

Probably Pioneer 10 and 11.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_lea...

Re: Where are the Voyagers?

#25

Post by sandworm101 »

sien wrote: post #16
josho wrote: post #2

As amazing as space technologies are, we are in the stone ages when it comes to spaceflight: > Earth moves around the sun faster than Voyager 2 is traveling from Earth, the distance between Earth and the spacecraft actually decreases at certain times of the year. We don't even have the technology to escape the sun's gravity without needing a gravitational slingshot from other planets, and that still leaves us with a…

We could build something nuclear powered that would be able to do it. Project Orion or Project Daedelus would be able to escape the sun's gravity without needing a gravitational slingshot. But we have decided for now not to build something like that. Maybe in the next century at some point a nuclear powered spacecraft could be built in space that could start exploring other star systems.

>> nuclear powered spacecraft.

The voyagers are nuclear powered. They have RTGs powering their electronics and heat from those devices has changed their trajectories. The concept of a nuclear reactor powering an electric thruster isn't very far fetched. If we were going to go anywhere outside the solar system, that is the sort of nuclear power we would use.

Re: Where are the Voyagers?

#26

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

Diederich wrote: post #8
josho wrote: post #2

As amazing as space technologies are, we are in the stone ages when it comes to spaceflight: > Earth moves around the sun faster than Voyager 2 is traveling from Earth, the distance between Earth and the spacecraft actually decreases at certain times of the year. We don't even have the technology to escape the sun's gravity without needing a gravitational slingshot from other planets, and that still leaves us with a…

> we are in the stone ages when it comes to spaceflight Indeed, only 59 years since we first put something into earth orbit. We're just getting warmed up!

But that was only 54 years after figuring out powered flight.

Re: Where are the Voyagers?

#28

Post by nswanberg »

hanoz wrote: post #23

This is all very well, but where are they in the night sky is what I would like to know. And no I'm not expecting to see them, just to think about them in the right direction.

This shows their positions on a sky chart: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=voyager+1,+voyager+2+sk...

Re: Where are the Voyagers?

#30

Post by civilian »

hanoz wrote: post #23

This is all very well, but where are they in the night sky is what I would like to know. And no I'm not expecting to see them, just to think about them in the right direction.

Right Ascension: 17h 11m 31.0s Declination: 11° 57' 50.9" (J2000) http://theskylive.com/voyager1-tracker It's in the constellation Ophiucus.

It'll be doing a flyby of Gliese 445 in 40,000 years, but it'll be brick'd by then. http://www.space.com/22783-voyager-1-interstellar-space-star...

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