Like what is the ultimate fate of the voyager probes and others on escape trajectories? My understanding is that space is far too sparse for these things to ever hit anything by coincidence, so their eventual fate is probably to be ejected out of the galaxy at some point.

They are then unlikely to be moving fast enough to actually cross intergalactic distances quickly enough for the expansion of space to not outpace the distance covered, leaving them in this void forever.

How long would they be recognizable as technological objects before the eons worth of stray hydrogen atoms erode everything away?

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[–] abc@hexbear.net 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

shrug-outta-hecks Parker Solar Probe got up to a speed of 190 km/s during its mission by doing 7 gravity assists using Venus, which is like 10x faster than Voyager 1's speed - so like cosecantphi said - it is easier to just plan a trajectory that utilizes the gravity of some large object in the path of your destination rather than relying on pure thrust/a large rocket.

[–] cosecantphi@hexbear.net 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Important to note that Parker Solar Probe has this speed extremely deep within the Sun's gravity well, whereas probes exiting the solar system just climbed out entirely.