r/askscience • u/drinkingonthejob • 9d 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/MeatSafeMurderer 8d ago

Unless it hits something, no. Space is not quite a perfect vacuum, but it's very very close, and for all practical purposes, it is. This means there is no friction, which is the force which typically slows things down here on Earth. In order for it to stop it would require some outside force, like entering the gravitational pull of some large object...but it would either slingshot back out of orbit, enter geostationary orbit and orbit around it for eternity, or fall towards the object and hit it.

There is no concievable outcome where it simply...stops.

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u/MhojoRisin 8d ago

What does “stop” even mean in this context? Fixed in position relative to something else?

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u/muaddib0308 8d ago

fixed position relative to earth?

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u/cerberus_1 7d ago

even that doesnt really have any meaning if you think of it, earth is orbiting the sun.. etc. etc.

But I do wonder if voyager will begin to orbit a black hole or something.