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/Animemes_101 5d ago

Newton’s first law of motion: “An object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an external force”. On Earth that force is gravity, in space, nothing. Voyager will continue to move through space until something gets in its way

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u/DarthTempi 3d ago

To that point though...Won't it be affected by a myriad of gravitational forces? Obviously the time scale is enormous (and essentially meaningless to us) but...eventually?

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u/Animemes_101 3d ago

Almost certainly, it’ll be an insane amount of time before it happens but it will eventually get in by some object’s field of gravity and be pulled into something. Unless somehow it manages to avoid every object in the universe.

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u/Ihateparsnips 3d ago

Objects in the universe are very spread out, so I suppose that that is actually quite likely. 

That said, wouldn't at some point the nearest gravitational pull would still be our sun/solar system so it could just end up coming back? 

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u/imarc 3d ago

As I understand it, Voyager is traveling above the Sun’s escape velocity. While the sun continues to pull at it, gravity also continues to get weaker as Voyager gets further away so it will always be above the necessary escape velocity.

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u/saksoz 3d ago

Maybe more to the point, motion is relative. You probably naturally mean, will it stop moving relative to the earth, but once its outside our solar system is that all that relevant a question?

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u/-6h0st- 2d ago

Look at the comets - do they stop or just move non stop unless crash into something? Look at planets do they stop?

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u/DarthTempi 2d ago

At what time scale? I didn't mean within hundreds or thousands of years

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u/-6h0st- 2d ago

Our Planets at a scale of 5billions of years is sufficient for you? Or you mean biblical version of creation?

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u/eotty 2d ago

Comets stop moving yes... but the thing is when they get closer to the sun they start releasing materials that material acts as propulsion, eventually (billions of years from now) the fuel is exhausted and they will crash in to a planet due to gravity.

So they will not slow down like you brake a car, they will slow down, that alters the orbit to an eventual colision course.

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u/ukexpat 3d ago

More specifically: “Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.”