8 ms·

It is kind of depressing to think this spacecraft that we launched over 30 years ago is only 1/2 light day away and the next nearest star is over 4 light years

• InclinedPlane 16y ago
  500 years ago the only way a human could go faster than, say, 20mph was by jumping off a tall structure. Even 200 years ago nobody knew much about the nature of the Universe outside our own Solar System, nobody knew how atoms worked, nobody knew about fission or fusion, nobody knew how the Sun worked, automobiles, computers, heavier than air flying machines, and spacecraft were as fantastical and unbelievable as any Greek myth, perhaps more so. Since then humanity has grown by leaps and bounds. Conquered diseases. Conquered limitations of distance. Learned many of the answers to the Universe's deepest questions. We know how stars work to a degree that would astound an astronomer from 1800. We know the age of the Universe to an incredible precision. We've spied on the microwave echo of the big bang. We've sent humans into space repeatedly and landed on a neighboring planetary body. The Universe is a big place, we've only barely started to explore it and understand it, but we shouldn't ignore how far we've come.
  • celoyd 16y ago
    Horses and some sailing ships go faster than 20 mph, but yeah. Also, Voyager wasn’t designed for maximal speed out of the solar system. Even then, if we had wanted to get to Alpha Centauri as fast as possible, we could have done better. Not that the numbers aren’t humbling.