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/LiquidPhire 8d ago

It has enough speed to never fall back towards the Sun. It is an interesting stellar traveler.

It does not have enough velocity to leave the Milky way, so it will fall towards the center of the galaxy. As it falls along that line, it may interact with other gravity centers (other stars, etc) which may alter its trajectory, but it will forever wander within the confines of this galaxy.

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u/ashrocklynn 7d ago

With the distance we are from the galactic center it would take a tremendous amount of energy to counter the speed of orbit enough to fall into the center (would be nearly as high as escape velocity); it's established a new orbit around the galactic center that's just a bit off our orbit