When does Voyager leave the solar system?

[flobadob]

I read recently that Voyager was nearing the edge of the solar system. Does anyone know when it is due to pass the edge and if so what does it enter into then. Do the same concepts of space travel apply, what orbit or path does it take? So many questions.

[flobadob]

http://blog.jmlynch.o.../02/13/pale-blue-dot/

[douglas9401]

Thanks for the link flobadob, it puts my current earthly problems in perspective. :}

[Huderon]

You could check out the NASA Voyager site - http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html

[douglas9401]

I did and it's great. Thank you Huderon.

[R1Geezer]

Newtons first, it will travel on it's current trajectory through interstellar space until it hits something.

[flobadob]

This is the last couple of sentences from that website.

"In about 40,000 years, Voyager 1 will drift within 1.6 light years (9.3 trillion miles) of AC+79 3888, a star in the constellation of Camelopardalis. In some 296,000 years, Voyager 2 will pass 4.3 light years (25 trillion miles) from Sirius, the brightest star in the sky . The Voyagers are destined—perhaps eternally—to wander the Milky Way."

So in 40,000 years they will still not have left our galaxy? That is amazing.

[MarkRae]

You may think it's a long way down the street to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.

[wolf63]

Can it go any faster?

I have been watching Star Trek/Stargate for so long that I forget that the fiction and the reality of space travel are very different.

I do know that Atlantis is in the Pegasus Galaxy.

[flobadob]

I wonder is it travelling in a straight line towards the edge of the galaxy or is it going in an orbit like movement?

[MarkRae]

Straight line. For it to travel in an orbital motion it would need to orbit something...

[dundurn]

http://www.heavens-above.com has a regularly updated map of where the Voyagers and Pioneers etc are at the moment.

[beso]

flogadob //So in 40,000 years they will still not have left our galaxy? That is amazing. //

Not just still in the Milky Way. Still in our back yard. The Milky Way is almost unimaginably large.

AC+79 3888 is 17.6 light years from us. The Milky Way galactic disk is about 1,000 light years thick and 100,000 light years in diameter.

[JonnyBoy12]

So, basically, it is just like a really big hamburger then. By the way I think that it is 16,000 light years thick in the middle; the figure you mentioned would be at the edge of the galaxy.

[beso]

Far more like a very thin pancake than a burger.

The 16,000 light years is the thickness of the central bulge. The rest of it averages 1,000 lys throughout.

[flobadob]

Yeah, the whole thing is incomprehensible really, especially when you think about that image that was taken of a snippet of the sky and was then shown to have hundreds of galaxies within the image. Think it was called Deep Field Image or something. Crazy, crazy, cool.

[beso]

Check out this site:
http://www.galaxyzoo.org/

It is a crowdsource project to classify galaxies. I contributed a few hundred classifications to their first project. Just looking at the photos makes it well worth your time helping them out.

To see some stunning photographs have a look at the forum. This one has the best photos.
http://www.galaxyzoof...g/index.php?board=4.0

The beauty is extraordinary and it is impossible not to be struck by the vast number of galaxies. They can be seen in the background of every photo. When I was contributing to the first project I was blown away by the sheer vast number of galaxies in this small sample of the Universe as I loaded photo after photo.

[flobadob]

That would all be over my head beso, but thanks for the links, I'll check out the pics.

[askyourgran]

Thanks for the link I find this so interesting, humbling too, to think we are all spinningon that blue dot out there thinking of how to get the next must have or how to be the next millionaire.

[flobadob]

I've come across another couple of interesting astronomy sites recently if anyone is interested.

http://www.daviddarling.info/ and

http://www.deerlickgroup.com/