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How did the Voyagers avoid hitting asteroids when exiting the solar system? I thought there was a huge cloud of asteroids surrounding our solar system.

tombert 2y ago
I know nothing about astronomy, but aren’t the gaps between asteroids pretty huge? Like hundreds of thousands of miles? I would think if they were close they would just clump together under gravity.
davidmurdoch 2y ago
Space is really really big. The astroids are tiny and not close to each other.
analog31 2y ago
Even the "dense" asteroid belt isn't all that dense, so the actual probability of getting whacked by something is pretty low.
liversage 2y ago
The asteroid belt is between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter so the Voyagers traveled through this before reaching their first mission goal, Jupiter.
furyofantares 2y ago
You're getting answers about the asteroid belt because you said asteroids, but I believe your question is about the Oort cloud (comets) since you said surrounding the solar system. From wikipedia; > Space probes have yet to reach the area of the Oort cloud. Voyager 1, the fastest[60] and farthest[61][62] of the interplanetary space probes currently leaving the Solar System, will reach the Oort cloud in about 300 years[6][63] and would take about 30,000 years to pass through it.
- Beldin 2y ago
  To the best of our knowledge, for any of asteroid belt, Kuiper belt and Van Oort cloud, the trick is hitting, not missing. Space is vast; matter is (relatively) sparse. Moreover, matter tends to clump together, concentrating what little there is.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  300 years, huh? I wonder if it'd be prone to Wait Calculation[1] at that level of travel? We'd definitely be dead or well into galaxy exploration by the time it's close to finished with the Oort Cloud. Either way, I wouldn't be too worried about collisions. To emphasize again, Space is really big and really empty in the grand scheme of things. Outside of a star's gravitation pull, we'd have to be extremely unlucky to have a collision once we get past the planets. And AFAIK there's no signifigant exoplanet within the Oort Cloud. As for stars: for reference, The Alpha Centauri is the closest to us and that is over twice as far as the edge of the Oort Cloud. It's not like we'd be able to get any data by that point in time, But I imagine crashing into another star outside of our Sun would be a celebrated moment rather than a somber one. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_travel#Wait_calculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_travel#Wait_calcu...
Hikikomori 2y ago
Space has a lot of space.
Zren 2y ago
https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0996.html https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0996.html > Leia: Chewie, get up here! We're going into an asteroid field! > Han: That's no problem. Just don't hit whatever asteroid might be within a hundred thousand kilometres. > Han: They're in nice stable orbits too, so it's easy to avoid them. > Leia: Okay, fine. We're going into a massive region of randomly moving, closely packed, enormous giant space rocks. > Han: Gaaaaaah!
bsder 2y ago
> How did the Voyagers avoid hitting asteroids when exiting the solar system? I thought there was a huge cloud of asteroids surrounding our solar system. The same way the Saturn probes went right through the rings and didn't hit anything. Even if it looks like a "cloud" or "ring", that doesn't mean that it is "dense". There are whopping distances between objects in space. It is way, way, way more difficult to actually "hit" something in space than it is to avoid something.

tombert 2y ago

I know nothing about astronomy, but aren’t the gaps between asteroids pretty huge? Like hundreds of thousands of miles? I would think if they were close they would just clump together under gravity.

davidmurdoch 2y ago

Space is really really big. The astroids are tiny and not close to each other.

analog31 2y ago

Even the "dense" asteroid belt isn't all that dense, so the actual probability of getting whacked by something is pretty low.

liversage 2y ago

The asteroid belt is between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter so the Voyagers traveled through this before reaching their first mission goal, Jupiter.

furyofantares 2y ago

You're getting answers about the asteroid belt because you said asteroids, but I believe your question is about the Oort cloud (comets) since you said surrounding the solar system. From wikipedia; > Space probes have yet to reach the area of the Oort cloud. Voyager 1, the fastest[60] and farthest[61][62] of the interplanetary space probes currently leaving the Solar System, will reach the Oort cloud in about 300 years[6][63] and would take about 30,000 years to pass through it.

Beldin 2y ago
To the best of our knowledge, for any of asteroid belt, Kuiper belt and Van Oort cloud, the trick is hitting, not missing. Space is vast; matter is (relatively) sparse. Moreover, matter tends to clump together, concentrating what little there is.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
300 years, huh? I wonder if it'd be prone to Wait Calculation[1] at that level of travel? We'd definitely be dead or well into galaxy exploration by the time it's close to finished with the Oort Cloud. Either way, I wouldn't be too worried about collisions. To emphasize again, Space is really big and really empty in the grand scheme of things. Outside of a star's gravitation pull, we'd have to be extremely unlucky to have a collision once we get past the planets. And AFAIK there's no signifigant exoplanet within the Oort Cloud. As for stars: for reference, The Alpha Centauri is the closest to us and that is over twice as far as the edge of the Oort Cloud. It's not like we'd be able to get any data by that point in time, But I imagine crashing into another star outside of our Sun would be a celebrated moment rather than a somber one. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_travel#Wait_calculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_travel#Wait_calcu...

Hikikomori 2y ago

Space has a lot of space.

Zren 2y ago

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0996.html https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0996.html > Leia: Chewie, get up here! We're going into an asteroid field! > Han: That's no problem. Just don't hit whatever asteroid might be within a hundred thousand kilometres. > Han: They're in nice stable orbits too, so it's easy to avoid them. > Leia: Okay, fine. We're going into a massive region of randomly moving, closely packed, enormous giant space rocks. > Han: Gaaaaaah!

bsder 2y ago

> How did the Voyagers avoid hitting asteroids when exiting the solar system? I thought there was a huge cloud of asteroids surrounding our solar system. The same way the Saturn probes went right through the rings and didn't hit anything. Even if it looks like a "cloud" or "ring", that doesn't mean that it is "dense". There are whopping distances between objects in space. It is way, way, way more difficult to actually "hit" something in space than it is to avoid something.