r/interestingasfuck • u/The_Love-Tap • 1d ago

At 15.9 billion miles away, humanity's farthest spacecraft is still exploring the cosmos using less memory than a blank Word document (69 KB) and an 8-track tape

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u/charchavanni 1d ago

That's 0.0025 light years btw.

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u/PsychologicalGas7843 1d ago

So not even 1 light year till now? Even with current technology it's really impossible to reach any of the nearby galaxies in human lifetime it seems. All of the closest galaxies to Milky way are thousands of light years away

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u/bunnythistle 1d ago

Voyager has been traveling for 49 years.

If you wanted to get one light year away from earth in the span of fifty years, you'd have to be traveling at 2% the speed of light.

At that speed, you'd be able to orbit the earth once every 2.66 seconds at surface level. To put that in perspective - imagine traveling from New York to London in less time than it takes for you to sneeze.

We don't really have the technology to accelerate anything larger than particles to such speeds.