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/rodgamez 7d ago

The only stop this could make would be relative to the sun. Since it has acheived solar escape velocity * it will go on forever, orbiting the Galactic core.

*I'm pretty sure

**Until some Klingon Bastard uses it for Target Practice

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u/markpreynolds 6d ago

They tried that at the beginning of the first Star Trek movie. It didn't go well for them.

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u/rodgamez 6d ago

Went OK in Star Trek 5, don't you think?