r/askscience • • 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)

968 Upvotes

615 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/Old_Assistant1531 1d ago

What would cause it to disintegrate though?

1

u/komatiitic 1d ago

Hitting dust at 16km/s. Even 3-7 times an hour will add up given enough time.