221–230 of 330 posts
sorry, i just have a silly question: what would it take to send new probes out there? voyager 3 and 4 for example to follow the same path (more or less, sans planet alignment) V1 and V2 followed, but with better hardware of course.
You can't. Voyager's launch date coincided with a planetary alignment allowing for gravitational slingshotting out of our galaxy. We have to wait for the next alignment.
The Voyager project is an amazing feat for humanity. But I wonder, does NASA take into account the repercussions of sending a probe deep into space? I know space is big but I can only think of the dark forest hypothesis. What's the plan for further space exploration?
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> [1] https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/frequently-asked-questions/ Also: Even if science data won't likely be collected after 2025, engineering data could continue to be returned for several more years. The two Voyager spacecraft could remain in the range of the Deep Space Network through about 2036, depending on how much power the spacecraft still have to transmit a signal back to Earth. That FAQ covers a lot of interes…
> the cameras were turned off to save power and memory Since it’s powered by an RTG, how does the power get “used up”? I assume that this refers to the available power budget at a given moment versus some sort of expendable power reserve.
Pretty incredible feat of engineering (both back when it was launched and now). Does anyone know its current purpose? I’m curious if there’s anything we’re actively using it for or if it’s just a matter of “look for surprises”.
The magnetometers and charged particle detectors are still operating. So they are measuring the galactic magnetic field, and cosmic rays and the gas in interstellar space. The results are more or less what was predicted, though the exact boundary of the sun's influence was only discovered when Voyager 1 and 2 crossed over it in 2012 and 2018 respectively. Beyond that, yes, they're basically assuring us the sun is sti…
The Voyager project is an amazing feat for humanity. But I wonder, does NASA take into account the repercussions of sending a probe deep into space? I know space is big but I can only think of the dark forest hypothesis. What's the plan for further space exploration?
Meanwhile, radio, TV and radar have been advertising the presence of a new technological civilization on Earth for more than a century. That means any entity worth worrying about within a 100+ light year radius - a distance 44+ times longer than to Proxima - already knows about us. And that sphere keeps growing in all directions at the speed of light, or roughly 18000 times faster than Voyager 1 is moving.
If you really want to worry about the Dark Forest, it would be more justified to ask if your local radio station takes into account the repercussions of sending commercials and TOS reruns into deep space.
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Oh, you sweet summer child...
This patronizing phrase should really be scrubbed from the modern lexicon.
There's something very beautiful about Voyager's journey so far. I hope one day when we're a true interstellar species we'll still keep tabs on it. The data may not be useful anymore, but it would be cool to imagine a year 3000 society with a little "Look at where Voyager is now :)" tool that you can see its path and where humans have colonized by comparison.
Perhaps our descendants will build a museum around it without ever changing its velocity.
The Voyager project is an amazing feat for humanity. But I wonder, does NASA take into account the repercussions of sending a probe deep into space? I know space is big but I can only think of the dark forest hypothesis. What's the plan for further space exploration?
Voyager 1 is currently 2.4e10 km from Earth. Trisolaris - sorry, I mean Proxima Centauri - is 4e13 km away [2], so in the (almost) 47 years since its launch, Voyager 1 has covered a whopping 0.06% of the distance. And it's not even headed that way. Meanwhile, radio, TV and radar have been advertising the presence of a new technological civilization on Earth for more than a century. That means any entity worth worryin…
There’s actually a documentary about this:
The Voyager project is an amazing feat for humanity. But I wonder, does NASA take into account the repercussions of sending a probe deep into space? I know space is big but I can only think of the dark forest hypothesis. What's the plan for further space exploration?
Voyager 1 is currently 2.4e10 km from Earth. Trisolaris - sorry, I mean Proxima Centauri - is 4e13 km away [2], so in the (almost) 47 years since its launch, Voyager 1 has covered a whopping 0.06% of the distance. And it's not even headed that way. Meanwhile, radio, TV and radar have been advertising the presence of a new technological civilization on Earth for more than a century. That means any entity worth worryin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe some notes on how to handle degrading power supplies while they're at it.
They turn stuff off. It's not a secret. The vast majority of the sensors are off. They're simply not needed in interstellar space.