Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

scienceclock.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 411 posts

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#131

Post by theoldgreybeard »

yogsototh wrote: post #101
elashri wrote: post #31

Wow, this gives a reflection about our future. The nearest potentially habitable planet known is Proxima Centauri b, which orbits the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri about 4 light‑years from Earth (at least it is in a habitable zone of its star) [1]. So we don't have a choice actually except protecting and make sure our planet survives. That's regardless if it really would be able to support life as we know or not (p…

I think there are a few movies that made me realize how much the space is vast, empty and adverse to life. I think it would be nice for people to take a look at them: - Aniara (2018) - High Life (2018) and maybe in a less artistic view: - Powers of Ten (1977) yt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0

I showed my 6 year old son Powers of Ten a few nights ago and I think I accidentally gave him an existential crisis.

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#133

Post by throwway120385 »

Sanzig wrote: post #106
threethirtytwo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one likes to think this but it’s very possible voyager is the farthest humanity will go. In fact realistically speaking it is the far more likeliest possibility.

Provided we don't wipe ourselves out, there's no technical reason why we can't go interstellar. It's just way harder and more energy intensive than most people imagine, so I doubt it's happening any time in the next few hundred years. But we already understand the physics and feasibility of "slow" (single-digit fractions of c ) interstellar propulsion systems. Nuclear pulse propulsion and fission fragment rockets req…

The other thing we could do to explore the galaxy is to become biologically something we would no longer recognize. We're viewing this from the lens of "humanity must remain biologically static" but I want to point out that that's not physically necessary here and that there is life on Earth that can stop its metabolism for decades and things like that.

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#134

Post by swores »

shagie wrote: post #122
Mogzol wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The headstart doesn't really matter, anything faster than Voyager will catch up eventually

Voyager 1 is traveling at 16.9 km/s. New Horizons (which has the distinguishing feature of being the fastest human-made object ever launched from earth https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/life-unbounded/the-f... ) is traveling at 12.6 km/s. The key part there is that it got multiple gravity assists as part of the Grand Tour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour_program . You can see the heliocentric velocity h…

You’ve given numbers for how fast New Horizons launched, and for how fast Voyager 1 got thanks to the 1-in-175-years boost, but is there an easy way to actually compare them?

IE either what speed Voyager 1 launched at excluding the gravity assists, or what speed New Horizons would have reached if it were launched 175 years after Voyager 1 (to take advantage of the same gravity assists)?

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#135

Post by trenning »

ksymph wrote: post #123
jamesgill wrote: post #108

If Voyager could stay operational and keep its speed of ~61,000 km/hr, it would reach the nearest star (Proxima Centauri) in about 72,000 years. My mind understands the numbers, but can't grasp them.

For reference, the oldest cave drawings we know of were made by neanderthals around ~70,000 years ago [0]. [0] https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2018/02/neanderthals-art....

Próxima Centauri is about 250 million years older than our sun. Makes it not-impossible their earth like planet had advanced entities capable of sending their own voyager towards earth. Possibly it flew by while we were still in our Mesozoic Era and all they saw were dinosaurs.

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#136

Post by shagie »

chistev wrote: post #97
chistev wrote: post #11

Wrote about the Voyager probes two days ago in my blog - The two Voyager spacecraft are the greatest love letters humanity has ever sent into the void. Voyager 2 actually launched first, on August 20, 1977, followed by Voyager 1 on September 5, 1977. Because Voyager 1 was on a faster, shorter trajectory (it used a rare alignment to slingshot past both Jupiter and Saturn quicker), it overtook its twin and became the f…

Extended piece from my blog. The two Voyager spacecraft are the greatest love letters humanity has ever sent into the void. Voyager 2 actually launched first, on August 20, 1977, followed by Voyager 1 on September 5, 1977. Because Voyager 1 was on a faster, shorter trajectory (it used a rare alignment to slingshot past both Jupiter and Saturn quicker), it overtook its twin and became the farther, faster probe. As of…

That legacy of the Pale Blue Dot has been something that has been repeated to remind us again. I personally like the Cassini one - https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/earth-science/23ju...

There's also the MESSENGER family portrait https://science.nasa.gov/resource/a-solar-system-family-port...

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#137

Post by 1970-01-01 »

Mistletoe wrote: post #12

When I read stats like this I realize how stuck in this solar system we are. I wonder if billionaires would care for the planet more if they knew that Earth is honestly just it for humans, for maybe forever.

Nuclear propulsion is the answer to this problem, but we're too busy with internal affairs to get around to trying it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Longshot

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#138

Post by chistev »

theoldgreybeard wrote: post #132

We're never getting out of this solar system, are we?

Haha, never doubt science! You never know. Centuries ago, humans then would have regarded today's technological feats as impossible.

But, yeah, I don't think we are ever leaving the Milky Way. Lol

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#139

Post by foxglacier »

Mistletoe wrote: post #12

When I read stats like this I realize how stuck in this solar system we are. I wonder if billionaires would care for the planet more if they knew that Earth is honestly just it for humans, for maybe forever.

You people should stop demonizing billionaires. You're the ones burning the fossil fuels, not them. If their wealth way distributed among more people then those people would spend it damaging the environment which is what people generally do with their money anyway.

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#140

Post by [deleted] »

tpurves wrote: post #58
glenstein wrote: post #30

Not that we would literally do this with Voyager, but it makes me wonder at the potential utility of a string of probes, one sent every couple of [insert correct time interval, decades, centuries?], to effectively create a communication relay stretching out into deep space somewhere. My understanding with the Voyagers 1 and 2 is (a) they will run out of power before they would ever get far enough to benefit from a re…

What you are describing has been proposed before, for example within context of projects like Breakthrough Starshot. In that the case the idea is to launch thousands of probes, each weighing only a few grams or less, and accelerating them to an appreciable fraction of the speed of light using solar sails and (powerful) earth-based lasers. The probes could reach alpha centauri within 20-30 years. There seems to be som…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN