Voyager II on verge of crossing into Interstellar Space

when considering transmissions from earth - one must take into account the " inverse square rule " for signal strength // propagation .

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the TL : DR summary :

historic broadcasts are still " out there " - BUT even if " something " is scanning the correct part of the spectrum - the chances of them recognising it as a signal is remote - theres a lot of noise

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
when considering transmissions from earth - one must take into account the " inverse square rule " for signal strength // propagation .

wiki primer

follow the external linksa or google to learn more

the TL : DR summary :

historic broadcasts are still " out there " - BUT even if " something " is scanning the correct part of the spectrum - the chances of them recognising it as a signal is remote - theres a lot of noise

So, no pirate aliens then? Dang it...I was brainstorming ideas for a book to movie deal with Warner Brothers.

Serious note though, I’d have to imagine that advanced civilizations, at least some and at least at some point, did like we have done/are doing in figuring out ways to filter out most noises?

Again, I’m a casual fan of this stuff most of what I think I know comes from documentaries, ATS, and other randomness.

a reply to: Assassin82

Well, my Mom's collection (which I inherited) was just appraised at about $940,000. Needless to say, those stamps are in that collection also! (along with just about every other US Stamp ever minted).

I for one hope our new alien overlords accept the invitation. I shall roll out the carpet.

Couldn't be any worse than our current human ones.

But yes, amazing stuff, now if we can only get some vehicles with humans out there too. I'd like to see that before I die. heck I'd like to be one of those going.

a reply to: toysforadults

No, not really. First of all, those probes are pretty damned small. That means that they are less likely to be hit by objects floating around out there. Second, the space they are in is LARGE, which means that even if they were to pass through a relatively busy section of the solar system, they would be very unlucky indeed to collide with anything substantial enough to do damage to them, although, of course, the safety of the craft would depend on being given good instruction from Earth, as to oncoming threats, with minor course corrections to mitigate for said threats.

Our solar system though, has PLENTY of debris fields, asteroids and other chunks of stuff just out there in the apparent void, not to mention the junk we have placed in orbit around our own planet. Its just that the space its suspended in is so vast that regardless of the volume of crap out there, the chances of hitting it are really small.

a reply to: TrueBrit


Just wondering, does it have any fuel left for manoeuvres and can threats be detected?

Well, the other thing to remember about the Voyager craft(s) is, they don't have any atmosphere inside them. In other words, the inside pressure is the same as the outside pressure of the craft. If they were penetrated by something like a micrometeorite unless that hit something vital it would probably be business as usual. They don't have to maintain an environment inside them sufficient to support life.

I suspect they actually have been hit by small things in their lives.

Another poster asked if they could detect and maneuver away from a collision, and the answer is, no, not really. They were programmed to detect things like planets, but they don't have a constant radar sweep like an aircraft or a ship would. It would require way too much power. Even if they did have some detection equipment on board they don't have enough fuel to truly get out of the way of something. Recently they re-oriented Voyager 1 to have the antennas better face Earth. The actual firing sequence took only seconds, but the planning and execution was literally YEARS in the making.

In just over a year from now they will begin powering down Voyager 1 with the biggest (remaining) power consumers first. The power down effort has actually been going on for years already with instruments which were no longer required being shut down. The effort beginning in 2020 will just be more aggressive to optimize the life of the craft.

This process will take several years. By sometime around 2028 +/- Voyager 1 will fall silent forever. From then on she will just be a relic of the past drifting through space.

What a truly amazing tribute to mankind's ingenuity the Voyager program has been. It's original design originally planned to end in November of 1980, just three years after Voyager's launch. Here we are FORTY ONE YEARS later talking about the spacecraft lasting another 10 YEARS. Fifty one (51) years! Not a bad run for a probe only designed to be in service for three years!!

a reply to: oldcarpy


Lets find out!

*googles furiously*

Well, Voyager 1 had enough reaction mass left to do a test thrust burn, for the first time in 37 years, just last year! So my answer would have to be a resounding yes. The main thing is that the threats I am talking about would have been accounted for DECADES ago, during the mission planning stages, based on what we knew of the nature and motion of the solar systems various bands of asteroids, and other assorted oddities. The course can be adjusted, but it has to be done WEEEEELLLLLL in advance of encountering a threat, otherwise there will not be enough time for the alteration to take effect, and also the instruction would have to be sent at least seventeen hours before the action the instruction refers to, needed to be taken, to account for the time it takes signals to get out that far.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk


Thanks for that, an interesting read.

A bit like the MER's Opportunity and Spirit keeping going for way longer than planned for.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

That was pretty much my entire point. As usual, you explained it better than I did.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Voyager 1 is about 13.5 billion miles from Earth.

Radio transmissions from the craft require over 19 hours to reach Earth traveling at the speed of light.

I wanted to go ahead and throw in some visual representation of where the Voyagers are (ish). It appears to be only a couple weeks old, so hopefully it's accurate. I've never personally been that far from Earth, so I can't say for certain.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: Assassin82

Well, my Mom's collection (which I inherited) was just appraised at about $940,000. Needless to say, those stamps are in that collection also! (along with just about every other US Stamp ever minted).

Impressive. What a cool family heirloom to pass down. You ever created a thread on here highlighting some of the more valuable stamps you have?

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: TrueBrit
Voyager 1 is about 13.5 billion miles from Earth.
Radio transmissions from the craft require over 19 hours to reach Earth traveling at the speed of light.

Stupid slow speed of light. Isn't there anything faster?

a reply to: oldcarpy

No wonder we have had no communication back, they probably saw episodes of Storage Wars and thought...naahhh

I've always pondered how cool it would be if in a few (delete as applicable) hundreds or thousands of years we caught upto it and retrieved it.

Imagine the look on those humans faces when they came across it..

Kind of gives an idea of just how primitive we really are. Look how long it's taken us just to get out of our own solar system with a probe. This thing has been in space almost as long as I've been alive.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Sorry, my mistake!

Well spotted.

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
Kind of gives an idea of just how primitive we really are. Look how long it's taken us just to get out of our own solar system with a probe. This thing has been in space almost as long as I've been alive.

Thechically speaking, the Voyagers are still in the Solar System, given the fact that they're well within the orbit of Sedna and some other very distant Solar System objects, not to mention the Oort cloud.



In fact, Voyager 2 is only at a slightly further distance from the Sun than Sedna currently is.

Rather, we could say that the interstellar space reaches into the outer Solar System, where the solar wind can't fight against the pressure of interstellar medium anymore.