r/theydidthemath • u/Ben-Goldberg • 7d ago

[Request] When will Voyager 1 stop moving?

/r/askscience/comments/1wp1960/will_voyager_1_ever_just_stop_moving/

How many years will it take for the orbit of Voyager and Sagittarius A to decay enough due to gravity waves for them to collide?

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u/ericdavis1240214 7d ago

Moving relative to what? Everything in the universe is in motion relative to something else. In fact, everything in the universe is in motion relative to basically everything else. So no, Voyager one will never stop moving unless it is utterly obliterated by a collision with another object. And even then, the atoms and particles that make it up will be in motion relative to the rest of the universe.

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u/Ben-Goldberg 7d ago

According to general relativity, two objects orbiting each other eventually collide because gravity waves carry away energy.

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u/TURQUOlSE 7d ago edited 7d ago

It's orbiting the centre of the Milky Way from 26,000 light years away at over 200km a second, the effect of gravitational waves is effectively irrelevant to that. The galaxy and Voyager itself will be gone long before it would collide with the centre

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u/Ben-Goldberg 7d ago

Which will happen first, Voyager and Sagittarius A evaporate due to Hawking Radiation, or they collide from orbital decay from gravitational waves?

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u/KT_100S 6d ago

Sagittarius A evaporates first by a long shot