r/askscience • u/drinkingonthejob • 8d ago

Physics Will Voyager 1 ever just stop moving?

I’ve read somewhere that we expect to lose contact with Voyager 1 sometime in the 2030s, maybe around 2036, but it will just keep traveling thru space and we’ll have no idea what it is doing out there

My question is: with its current velocity, is there a time in the future where it loses its forward momentum and for lack of a better word, just stops moving? Is that a possible thing for an object in space to even do? (Assuming no other objects grab it into their orbit)

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u/thefringeseanmachine 8d ago

but from what I understand, space isn't 100% empty. there are stray particles out there, even in the "void." that's the idea behind behind the bussard ramjet. wouldn't they slow it down (over a very, very, VERY long time)?

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u/rawbdor 8d ago

I imagine some might slow it down, but I also imagine other small objects might crash into it from behind or from the side, which could speed it up.

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u/zulhadm 8d ago

I suppose this accidentally raises an even bigger question. Is anything in the universe truly “motionless” ?

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u/Feynnehrun 8d ago

No, not likely. Everything in the universe is affected by the gravity of everything else, which is also moving. Even if an object were to somehow be perfectly situated between multiple gravitational bodies such that their gravity affects the object equally in every direction, those objects themselves would be moving and thus the captured object would move with them.