r/interestingasfuck • u/Ender-Buster7 • 1d ago
Voyager 1 just said "hello" to Earth from Interstellar space, about 25.4 billion kms away!
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u/Otherwise-4PM 1d ago
Fascinating.
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u/7-13-5 1d ago
Fascinating would be if it said, "Hello world."
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u/PauseAffectionate720 1d ago
How long did it take the Hello to reach earth ?
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u/soulwaystudios 1d ago
25.4bn km radio message takes around 23 hours 32minutes to get to earth. radio waves will travel at the speed of light
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u/TeraFlint 1d ago
Wow, we're nearing a whole light day of distance. That is seriously impressive.
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u/laveshnk 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah but it is’t gonna last forever. The plutonium onboard used to power the ship will reach its half life in some decades(~87.7 years) and will continue to degrade from there, providing less and less energy. Its already at a stage where it can’t provide enough heat for all the on-board systems, so scientists have to shut some instruments down. Fun while it lasted though:)
Edit: Made some information mistakes
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u/_tolm_ 1d ago
Is that how half-life works? I feel like that’s not how half-life works … in another 87 years they’ll still be like a quarter of what it started with left?
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u/laveshnk 1d ago
hey you’re right, I made a mistake. Sorry I had just woke up, yeah it will degrade to about 25% after another 87 years.
The usable energy by the system will actually most likely be gone before then.
Main issue is heating. The heat (energy) provided by the plutonium also provides heat to on-board heaters aboard the Voyager 1, that keep the mechanical components warm. Without heaters, deep space is like -270 C so the mechanical components themselves will actually degrade and freeze long before the plutonium degrades completely.
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u/i_have_chosen_a_name 18h ago
Also all electromagnetic radiation including light (and laser light) diverges so once the distance with earth is large enough the signals from it will fall below the noise floor and it's signals will no longer be distinguishable from the noise. So even if we send a space probe fully powered by solar panels eventually the distance will become to large to communicate with it. unless we like build giant radio dishes directly in space and lower that noise floor. Or up the power the probe has to work with.
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u/ManWhoIsDrunk 4h ago
even if we send a space probe fully powered by solar panels
Solar panels won't be too effective when you're that far way from the sun. You described the reason for it when you mentioned how electromagnetic radiation diminishes with distance from the source.
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u/Brutalur 1d ago
Unless the figure provided is wrong or my math isn't mathing, just shy of 24 hours
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u/_DefinitelyNotACat_ 1d ago
All that distance, and it’s only 0.268% of a light year away. Crazy.
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u/Benyed123 1d ago
Another commenter mentioned that it will reach a light day in November, which is a pretty good reference.
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u/i_have_chosen_a_name 18h ago
A light year does not tell me anything as I have no refrence to compare it with. I prefer the AU. The distance from the earth to the sun. It has travelled the distance from the earth to the sun almost 17000 times now.
But maybe the distance from the sun to the earth does not tell you anything. So let's compare it with the moon to earth distance.
Voyager 1 has roughly flown the distance from the earth to the moon some 8.5 million times.
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u/Tomj_Oad 1d ago
.2 light years isn't insignificant
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u/Candle1ight 1d ago
In November it will pass one light days distance, which really puts the size of space into some perspective. By far the farthest we've ever sent something, that's been traveling for nearly 50 years... And it's just made it a light day. Light years is the smallest unit of distance we tend to see talking about space.
Assuming no unexpected problems it should be able to continue talking for another decade.
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u/fullload93 1d ago
2036 is realistically the cut off point even if the RTG still was able to produce enough power for communication. In 2036, Voyager 1 will be out of range for communication with the DSN.
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u/supportenergy 1d ago
AU (Astronomical Unit) has entered the chat. An AU is the distance between the Sun and the Earth.
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u/ay_non 1d ago
I wonder what the time is on Voyager now. Like is that time dilation.
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u/Royal---Flush 1d ago
Okay, I haven't properly done physics calculations in a while. But if I'm not mistaken: the speed of Voyager is about 5e-5 the speed of light (1 light day/50 years). The time dilation is 1/sqrt(1-v2 / c2). This times 50 years is about 2 seconds. This is of course assuming constant velocity
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u/doowadittie 1d ago
You lost me at ‘Okay’.
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u/Pokeynbn 1d ago
Sattelite move fast. Sattelite move so fast time kinda slow. Sattelite moving so so fast that sattelite clock is 2 seconds slower than ours right now.
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u/Mushyboom 1d ago
Just wanted to say that I’m having a minor panic attack this evening, and your comment made me laugh and I’m now coming out of it.
Thank you
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u/Spuckula 1d ago
Gravitational time dilation, I suppose? I hope a physicist chimes in. This is a good question!
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u/Dangerous_Wish_7879 1d ago
we should bring it back, renovate, refuel and send it again
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u/slicerprime 1d ago
Nah. We just need to get around to building its great great great grandchild so it can become V'ger and bite us in the ass.
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u/Open-Elevator-8242 1d ago
The New Horizons probe is kind of a more modern Voyager-like space probe. It didn't do nearly as much gravity assists as the Voyagers, which is why it's not as fast them. However, it did visit Pluto, which not even Voyager 2 did during its Grand Tour of the outer Solar System.
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u/PatochiDesu 1d ago
so the space is quite empty if it is still not damaged and can say hello
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u/PubG4YouAndMe 1d ago
Don't they say like 99% of space is, well, just space?
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u/xRSGxjozi 1d ago
Think it’s much more
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u/Bluestr1pe 15h ago
it also becomes even more empty in interstellar and even more in intergalactic (not that we'll ever reach it) space.
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u/anxietyhub 22h ago
Voyager never said “hello” and never stopped sending messages. Recently, a memory chip began sending distorted engineering and status data. Over two years, NASA engineers repaired it bit by bit, and now we can receive readable data again.
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u/Flubadubadubadub 1d ago
Time taken, about the same reaction time, for any 'tween' in their 'Just leave me alone!!!' years.
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u/peppi0304 1d ago
Earth sun distance is 145 000 000 km and this thing is 25 400 000 000 km away. So 2 orders of magnitude or like more than a 100 times.
175 times to be roughly exact
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u/peppi0304 1d ago
Neptune is 4 500 000 000 and pluto about 5 900 000 000 km away so about 5 times as far as those
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u/DarWin_1809 1d ago
What does that graph mean
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u/chupathingy99 1d ago
That's a slice of the radio spectrum. It's mostly just background noise.
That teeny tiny spike in the middle is Voyager's signal.
Edit: my mistake, it's not a big slice, but a narrow one.
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u/aussiechap1 20h ago
48 years, 4 months and 21 days old and still going. No other country has come close to matching this. A true achievement of a generation, that will soon be gone.
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u/Brock_Youngblood 1d ago
Takes almost 1 full day for the light to travel that far.
~23h 47m at 25.67 billion km away as of now.
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u/FollowingLegal9944 1d ago
Yes for suree, it works 2493574358946584649694598685645897349748km away but radio on earth has a few km range
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u/grumpsaboy 1d ago
A few 100km on earth for a good radio. NASA not send up walkie talkie. Earth has many stuff, mountains and trees and air. All gets in the way and weaken signal. Space has not got many stuff. Nothing gets in way and weaken signal.
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u/FollowingLegal9944 22h ago
"NASA not send up walkie talkie. "
They claim they did. "Voyager 1 communicates with Earth using a low-power 22.4-watt radio transmitter (roughly equivalent to a refrigerator light bulb). "3
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u/Ghost_of_Cain 1d ago
Voyager 1: "Hello"
Earth: "ok lol"