Voyager

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120321-how-big-is-space

Looking at this the Voyager probes would hav had to paas through the kuiper belt, amazing thsat they did not collide with anything !!

Or it this amazing? maybe its not as dense as pictures make it out to be ?

ciaranmac

The Kuiper belt is mostly empty space, as I understand it the chance of hitting something would be pretty slim. The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is relatively much more crowded (though nothing remotely like the density of the belts in Star Wars) and we've sent plenty of probes through it without crashing.

Yeah I thought that, just anytime you see pics of it ,it looks crammed full of em

Rubecula

rockdrummer4 wrote: »

Yeah I thought that, just anytime you see pics of it ,it looks crammed full of em

Just artistic licence I suppose. A painted picture is worth a thousand words as they say. But if you look at the asteroid belt through a large telescope you would be hard pushed to find much. There may be a lot of stuff there, but the volume of space it fills is pretty impressively sized too.

dbran

The total mass of the asteroid belt is estimated about 4% the mass of the moon.

More than half the mass of the belt is is composed by Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea which are the 4 biggest asteroids. So the rest of the belt is pretty spread out, ranging from just dust particles or a few kilometers in size.

The Kuiper belt beyond Neptune is more difficult to be exact about given its remoteness from Earth but current estimates are at most 1/10 Earth mass. The first Kuiper belt object was only discovered in 1992 so not as much is known about them. But again the amount of space covered would be huge at 10s-100s of AU out. So the chances of running into one by chance is vanishingly small.

dbran

shedweller

So do the people in charge of navigation make any allowances for the asteroid belt then? It's something i've always wondered!

namloc1980

I don't think so. Objects in the asteroid belt are very far apart, the chance of hitting something would be very very slim.

shizz

shedweller wrote: »

So do the people in charge of navigation make any allowances for the asteroid belt then? It's something i've always wondered!

Just avoid the biggest ones

Rubecula

Slightly off topic really, but a quick question.

Has any object been discovered in the Oort cloud as yet?

The Gnome

Rubecula wrote: »

Slightly off topic really, but a quick question.

Has any object been discovered in the Oort cloud as yet?

Sedna is an Oort cloud object, there's a few other possible ones too but as far as I remember they're pretty small.

Taylor365

According to wiki, Voyager is traveling at just about 10 miles a second. :O

Rubecula

Taylor365 wrote: »

According to wiki, Voyager is traveling at just about 10 miles a second. :O

36,000 mph? Seems a bit slow really doesn't? Be fast on Earth, but in space slower than a resting slug.

Nerro

well i wouldnt call it slow, it completed its mission to reach outer planets in one go, untill we discover some new propulsion technology, thats as fast as we will go.And the speed was reached by gravity assists from other planets without the need of an engine.
Ofcourse to reach other stars thats the same as standing still and to reach even a few percent of light speed aint going to happen in our lifetimes...
Heres a neat web page about the mission
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html

mickmackey1

I've always thought it was a bit ironic they put a plaque on it in case it was found by aliens. I mean in tens of thousands of years it will surely have been overtaken by far superior craft & will be completely obsolete. They were basically assuming we're going to wipe ourselves out and should get a few probes out there before its too late...

ThatDrGuy

They actually put records on them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record

I heard they were meant to be more of a time capsule ie someday we could over take it and pick it up and stick it in a museum. They were so optimistic in those days about the future of space travel. Modern industrial civilisation has only been around for about a hundred and fifty years. In that time we have managed about 5 massive wars, built enough nukes to end the world several times over, hugely overpopulated the planet and polluted the atmosphere essentially beyond remedy. I would say their assumptions were well founded.

TOMP

Anybody see the hour long programme last night on BBC 4 about Voyager programme and its discoveries? Interesting to see all the 1970's computers and technology.

Taylor365

Nerro wrote: »

well i wouldnt call it slow, it completed its mission to reach outer planets in one go, untill we discover some new propulsion technology, thats as fast as we will go.

Yes until we can safely develop and use a nuclear pulse propulsion.

Rubecula

TOMP wrote: »

Anybody see the hour long programme last night on BBC 4 about Voyager programme and its discoveries? Interesting to see all the 1970's computers and technology.

I watched it avidly. Until last night I had not known why Voyager 1 had such a different trajectory to Voyager 2. And the shutting down of the various modules was interesting too. I had an idea why but until last night I didn't know for certain.

TOMP

TOMP wrote: »

Anybody see the hour long programme last night on BBC 4 about Voyager programme and its discoveries? Interesting to see all the 1970's computers and technology.

What was the name of the programme, would like to see it...

Just amazing to think of 2 man made object 18bn miles from earth, and still operating.. how long does it take info to travel between voyagers and earth now? days / weeks?

Maximus Alexander

rockdrummer4 wrote: »

how long does it take info to travel between voyagers and earth now? days / weeks?

It takes about 17 hours each way to communicate with Voyager 1.

Maximus Alexander

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

It takes about 17 hours each way to communicate with Voyager 1.

Is that all, I thought it would have been alot more...

Maximus Alexander

rockdrummer4 wrote: »

Is that all, I thought it would have been alot more...

Luckily radio signals travel at the speed of light

Nerro

To compare a signal to mars takes 10 min to travel...and to voyager 17 h, that's how far it's away.

Rubecula

rockdrummer4 wrote: »

What was the name of the programme, would like to see it...

Just amazing to think of 2 man made object 18bn miles from earth, and still operating.. how long does it take info to travel between voyagers and earth now? days / weeks?

Voyager: The Final Frontier

Time to speak to Voyager 1 was quoted as being 15 hours there and 15 hours back. Total round trip of 30 hours.

Zillah

mickmackey1 wrote: »

I've always thought it was a bit ironic they put a plaque on it in case it was found by aliens. I mean in tens of thousands of years it will surely have been overtaken by far superior craft & will be completely obsolete. They were basically assuming we're going to wipe ourselves out and should get a few probes out there before its too late...

Even if we don't doom ourselves, there was no guarantee that technology would/will continue to increase at previous rates, or that public interest and therefore funding could be maintained. There might have been one space age and then a reversion to an Earth-focused viewpoint for all they knew. Also, even if we make probes that go much faster, they still have several decades of catching up to do. There is also no reason to assume we'll send one off in the exact same direction, as opposed to, y'know, one of the other fifty billion directions available to us.

I for one find the voyager record to be quite touching, with the message from Carter to be especially poetic.

Rubecula

Rubecula wrote: »

Voyager: The Final Frontier

Thanks

Maximus Alexander

Rubecula wrote: »

Voyager: The Final Frontier

Time to speak to Voyager 1 was quoted as being 15 hours there and 15 hours back. Total round trip of 30 hours.

I suspect that is a little out of date, or else NASA are sitting on a secret FTL communication device.

From here:

Distance from Earth
18,381,016,882 KM

18,381,016,882,000 meters / 299,792,458 meters (speed of light per second) = 61312.47 (seconds for light to travel that distance)

61312.47 / 60
= 1021.87 minutes

1021.87 / 60
= 17.03 hours

TOMP

That documentary on Voyager is being repeated tonight (Saturday 27th Oct) on BBC 4 at 22.55. Very worthwhile viewing.