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Five NASA Spacecraft That are Leaving Our Solar System for Good

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday September 30 2020, @10:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the to-infinity-and-beyond! dept.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

5 NASA Spacecraft That Are Leaving Our Solar System for Good:

For millennia, humans have gazed up at the stars and wondered what it would be like to journey to them. And while sending astronauts beyond the solar system remains a distant dream, humanity has already launched five robotic probes that are on paths to interstellar space.

Each of these craft was primarily designed to explore worlds in the outer solar system. But when they finished their jobs, their momentum continued to carry them farther from the Sun. Astronomers knew their ultimate fate was to live among the distant stars. And that's why all but one of these spacecraft carries a message for any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find it along the way.

They are:

  • Pioneer 10
  • Pioneer 11
  • Voyager 1
  • Voyager 2
  • New Horizons

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 30 2020, @12:47PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 30 2020, @12:47PM (#1059014)

    Voyager 1’s course could take it close to another star in some 40,000 years, while Voyager 2 won’t get close to another star for some 300,000 years, according to NASA.

    Assuming we have a civilisation then, let us also assume billybob is gonna sleep drive his sn of space x ute into one of the probes. Thus a mangled corpse is all will be found, probably by other earthlings.