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To put the 12B miles in an easier grasp, Pluto's average distance is 3.7B miles. So Voyager 2 is a hair under 3.3 Plutos away, and Voyager 1 at 15B miles is sli
by fuzzythinker 3y ago
To put the 12B miles in an easier grasp, Pluto's average distance is 3.7B miles. So Voyager 2 is a hair under 3.3 Plutos away, and Voyager 1 at 15B miles is slightly over 4 Plutos away.
Another point of reference is the heliosphere, at 100AU. 1AU (earth to Sun) is 93M miles, so the heliosphere is around 2.5 Plutos away.
- physicles 3y agoOn some other YouTube channel, I recently saw a diagram where the width was 0.01 light-year. That’s “only” about 59 billion miles; surely we can’t be too far from the moment we can conceive of Voyager 1’s distance in light-years. Nope. At its current speed, we’ve got another 129 years. That’s an underestimate because the spacecraft will continue to decelerate a bit as it pulls farther away from the sun. That’s about 60,000 years to the nearest star.
- lawlessone 3y ago>That’s about 60,000 years to the nearest star. Assuming it doesn't hit a rock or eventually fall into something. How long could it physically last with cosmic rays etc hitting it? will it eventually just an unrecognizable metal lump?
- paulddraper 3y ago> How long could it physically last with cosmic rays etc hitting it? Likely a long, long time. Neanderthal cave paintings have lasted upwards of 60,000 years.
- Natfan 3y agoSurely there's a difference between cave paintings on a planet with an atmosphere, and a spacecraft travelling void?
- paulddraper 3y agoYes, the former has many more destructive forces. So I expect Voyager to be more or less structurally similar in 60,000 years
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agothe one they updated is apparently 18.40 light hours away. So it will be quite some time before we're talking about light years.
- shiroiuma 3y agoI thought I read more recently that they're no longer sure about where the heliosphere ends, because of the data returned from the V'ger probes.
- amelius 3y agoA more relevant measure (for software updates etc.) would be light-years or light-seconds etc.
- shmde 3y agoMuricans will use anything but metric.
- _8j50 3y agoMetric doesn't let people grasp large numbers.
- martin_a 3y ago19.312.128.000 km is a pretty big number, people can grasp that.
- pilsetnieks 3y agoOnly the US, Liberia, and Myanmar have a complete grasp of large numbers like, for example, fifty-seven.
- _8j50 3y agoDamn it, internet and rage bait culture. "Americans will use anything but metric" in refernce to using pluto distance as a metric is what I replied to, not metric vs mi. Freaking HN.
- kstenerud 3y agoAnd yet literally the entire world aside from United States, Liberia, and Myanmar is able to grasp it perfectly. So such a statement would either insinuate that Americans are genetically inferior somehow, or you're just culturally attuned to an outdated British system.
- _8j50 3y agoWhat are you talking about? Look at the context before you get outraged. The comparison to metric here is "plutos" kind of like measuring with bananas. Saying a million km is not the same as saying "one moon distance".
- mardifoufs 3y ago
- godshatter 3y agoVoyager 2 is over 50,000 average Earth/Moon distances away, Voyager 1 is coming up on 63,000. I don't know if that makes it any easier to grasp, but I have a hard enough time relating to Pluto's distance, let alone the Voyagers.
- fuzzythinker 3y ago50k Earth-moon distance may be easier to grasp for some. For me, I'm not sure how to understand the earth/moon distance enough to make 50k earth-moon a more meaningful measurement. Pluto is in the Kuiper belt, which for many, signifies the physical bodied edge of our solar system. So for me, scaling that to 2.5 to know where the heliosphere is and 3.3 & 4 to where the Voyagers are is more understandable.
- ninju 3y agoHow many bananas is that? (/s)