a Quora - Will the Voyager probes last for eternity assuming they don't hit something

Keith Lemons
Updated April 6
Meteoritical Society & Planetary Science Society Member

Will the Voyager probes last for eternity assuming they don't hit 
something, or will they eventually decay?
Originally Answered: Will the Voyager Probes last for eternity assuming 
they don't hit something, or will they eventually decay?
Both Voyagers 1 & 2 will be constantly be bombarded by cosmic rays, 
against which for the most part they are very well shielded; they will 
encounter cosmic dust; and, (slightly possible) some micrometeoroids. 
Voyager 1 is travelling at a velocity relative to the Sun of 38,026.77 
mph; and, Voyager 2 at 34,390.88 mph. Voyager 1 is 13.581 billion miles 
(21,856,500,864 km) from Earth; Voyager 2, 11.219 billion miles 
(18,055,230,336 km) from Earth. NASA recently estimated the Voyagers’ 
velocity at roughly 1 million miles every 24 hours, which is blindingly 
quick - such that a human would not see it pass by at a close distance, 
they would have to observe its approach at a distance with telescopic 
lens to even know it was there because of its size.


Above, this artist's concept shows NASA's two Voyager spacecraft 
exploring a turbulent region of space known as the heliosheath, the 
outer shell of the bubble of charged particles around our sun. Credit: 
NASA/JPL**

Our Sun gives off a stream of charged particles that form a bubble 
around our solar system known as the heliosphere. The solar wind travels 
at supercharged speed of 400 km/s (about 1 million miles per hour) until 
it crosses a shockwave called the termination shock. That part of our 
solar system is shown in dark blue in the illustration above. Voyager 1 
crossed the termination shock in December 2004 and Voyager 2 did so in 
August 2007. Beyond the termination shock is the heliosheath, shown in 
grey, where the solar wind dramatically slows down and heats up. Outside 
those two areas is territory dominated by the interstellar wind, which 
is blowing from the left in this image. As the interstellar wind 
approaches the heliosphere, a bow shock forms, indicated by the bright 
arc in the illustration.

When each passed into the heliosheath, the Voyagers had made it through 
every dangerous portion of the original and extended missions each had. 
Each has made a now 41+ year journey, sometimes mind-boggling in the 
discoveries made and the hypotheses turned on their heads with each pass 
of a planet or planet’s moons were getting into unknown territory, but 
each survived without any damage that we know of and both are now 
travelling through interstellar space.

I don’t believe the human mind can grasp the vastness of interstellar 
space and the distance between its galaxies or celestial bodies, it is 
just too vast to visualize. I have enjoyed the few demonstrations 
professors and online media/television producers have given us on the 
vastness of just our tiny Solar System. The one that stands out in my 
mind is the professor walking down a desert road with a melon that 
represented Pluto. His journey ended about 40 miles from his pseudo-Sun. 
In actual distance, Pluto averages 3.67 billion miles (5,906,292,480 
km). The ratio of his demonstration was 91,750,000 to 1 (91.75 million 
to 1). I don’t think we are able to visualize or appreciate the ratio, 
much less the actual distance!

So barring an astronomically bad piece of luck, the Voyagers will keep 
on going for as long as man can imagine and then some.

**NOTE: This illustration can not be appreciated due to the size 
limitations on this page. Please take a look at the illustration on 
NASA’s website. It takes on a whole new perspective. Go to Voyagers in 
the Heliosheath and double-click the illustration - it will open a page 
showing its original resolution.

81.6K views383 upvotes14 shares16 comments

Profile photo for Alan Taggart
Alan Taggart
Thu
Do we ever get signals from Voyager?

Profile photo for Alan Taggart
Alan Taggart
Fri
Hey, waddya know, We do!

In late October of 2020 we sent a signal to Voyager 2, launched in 1977, 
and voyager answered !!! From interstellar space!!! This is after about 
8 months of no communication.

apparently we also talk to voyager 1! And think we will be able to until 
2025!! Can we build a space probe or what??