4 ms·
And how would you get them out to, and stop at, 550 AU? Voyager 1 and 2 are nuclear powered with RTGs and they are respectively about 150 AU and 125 AU from
by PopeDotNinja 6y ago
And how would you get them out to, and stop at, 550 AU? Voyager 1 and 2 are nuclear powered with RTGs and they are respectively about 150 AU and 125 AU from the sun, and they are going really fast. The Voyager RTGs are also fairly depleted at this point. I’m guessing these spacecraft would need a faster, more efficient mode of propulsion, like a nuclear thruster or ion drive (or Epstein drive?!). One could also get a lot more fuel for the journey if the the probes didn’t have to launch fully fueled from the Earth’s surface.
- rini17 6y agoNo need to stop at 550AU, the gravitational lens keeps working beyond that(theoretically all the way to infinity). As for how to get there, yes, innovative propulsion is required. My idea is that the probe would dive close to Sun and use solar energy (sail? electric propulsion?) to accelerate itself out to hundreds of km/s.
- 205guy 6y agoI was wondering how fast myself and found this: https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/ https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/ Voyager-1 is the fastest at 38,000 mph (61000 km/h) with respect to the Sun, but currently about 90,000 mph (144000 km/h) relative to earth (I guess this fluctuates annually).
- pas 6y agoSun slingshot, solar sail https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQFqDKRAROI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQFqDKRAROI