Voyager -- still a way to go . . .

I was browsing the Heavens-Above web site and clicked on the link for where the Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft are now. For pig-iron, I mucked about with the velocity figures to see how long it would be before Voyager 1 is one light-day from Earth. It's 13.16 light-hours away at the moment and a really rough guess is that it will take a little under another 15 years :!: before it gets to being 1 light-day from home. The probe was launched in 1977 so that's nearly 43 years to travel a distance light takes just a day to cross . . . that's amazing . . .

John

Do you know how fast it's currently traveling?

hi Dave,

the figures off the www.heavens-above.com site were;



I used the figure in the second line to do the very rough math (calculated how far it goes in a year and then divided that into how far light travels in a 10.84 hours -- how many hours left in a light-day). Of course that's it's position relative to Terenure in Dublin

all the best,

John

NASA had better get a move-on developing that warp engine or we'll never get anywhere.... :roll:

I make that 883,593,928km since 1977 (provided it was always travelling at it's current speed)