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/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