this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
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"Bad" memory that lasts 45 years in interplanetary space.
#BringVoyagerHome
As soon as we invent FTL I'm sure we will
Let's focus on FTV first
might want to sit down for this one
Bring it home...?
This is going to be one tough RMA...
All orbits are elliptical. Eventually, it will.
It's not in an orbit. Well, it technically is, but it moved far enough away that that orbit no longer intersects with the solar system's SOI. That was the whole point of the voyager probes, to go out into deep space. That's why we sent them out with our mix tapes
You're saying the same thing by a different route. It's orbit through the galaxy eventually comes back around to us.
Incidently, this is also why we can't just send nuclear waste on a solar escape trajectory. It eventually comes back.
It won't have started getting closer again before the Milky Way collides with the Adromeda galaxy in 5 Billion years, so it and anything we send on a similar path isn't coming back.
isn't it on an escape trajectory?
Is it in orbit? And more importantly, is it in orbit around us?
It is, but not around us. It doesn't matter, because that orbit still comes back around.
It won't necessarily come back. Till the orbits of Voyager and the Solar system intersect, we would've merged with Andromeda, which would completely change all orbits in unpredictable ways. So no, you cannot say with confidence that Voyager will return back to the Solar system before the Sun dies purely using orbital mechanics.
I would believe that if the universe was not constantly expanding, that would be mathematically true. I'm not mathematician, but I think with a constantly expanding universe, that's not a mathematical certainty.
As I understand it, expansion doesn't really affect local systems like galaxies directly/significantly. It's not really a factor for voyager returning or not.
Maybe in some perfect high school physics problem context. Ever heard of the three body problem? How about the million body problem zooming through the galaxy?
Why would be expect a deep space probe to return to earth when it’s going to interact with many objects with millions of times the mass of the earth?