Sunday, August 13, 2006

Star Trek = Cobblers


On Saturday, 12th August 2006, Voyager 1 will become the first spacecraft to reach 100 AU from the Sun after 29 years in space.

An 'AU' is an 'astronomical unit' equivalent to the distance from the earth to the sun. 1 AU is equal to 92 955 807 miles or nearly 500 light seconds or 1 / 63,241 light years.

So 29 years in space, and the Voyager is 1 / 63 241 light years away. The nearset star to Earth is Proxima Centauri, a 'red-dwarf' in the "Alpha Centurai" star system. This star is 4.2 light years away . So if the Voyager keeps travelling for another 265,612 years it would reach Proxima Centauri, if it was travelling in the right direction, which it isn't.

P.S 'Voyager 1' is still working suprisingly so maybe in the year 267,618ish we may start to see picture of little green people.

2 comments:

Glynn said...

Assuming the batteries didn't run out, it would take over four years for the pictures to arrive back on Earth. Star Trek is cobblers anyway.

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