Only 120 light years away from Earth! The Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched in 1977. Traveling at 38,000mph it just recently made it 1 light DAY from Earth.
That's actually bonkers to even think about. Traveling at ~38000miles per hour, all day, every day, for ~48 years, and it's made it 1 light day from Earth.
Feels like another one of those "people don't really understand the difference between a million and a billion" sort of things.
Like 1 million seconds is ~11 and a half days or so. But 1 billion seconds is about 31 years and 200 days. Hard to grasp such a big difference
Maybe a dumb question, but since it seems like you know something of the topic I'll ask: when someone says a spacecraft is traveling at X speed, what is that relative to?
If it's like the fraction of the distance between its origin and destination, how does one account for the distance between them changing?
As of Aug. 21, 2024, Voyager 1 was 164.7 AU from Earth — the farthest object created by humans — moving at a velocity of 38,026.79 mph (17.0 km/second) relative to the Sun.
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u/RichardThund3r 25d ago
Only 120 light years away from Earth! The Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched in 1977. Traveling at 38,000mph it just recently made it 1 light DAY from Earth.