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   Sean Heber (bigzaphod@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 03-Nov-2024 17:35:02 JST Sean Heber

   The Voyager probes are so cool. One of the coolest things humanity has ever done, IMO. They'll eventually stop functioning, but as an artifact they'll probably outlive our whole species. If they don't hit anything, they might someday make a complete orbit of the entire galaxy.

   • GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Sean Heber (bigzaphod@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 03-Nov-2024 17:35:02 JST Sean Heber

     in reply to

     Some estimates suggest the Voyager crafts might survive (for some definition of "survive") all the way until Andromeda and Milky Way collide. That's around 4.5-5 billion years from now. For reference, our estimate is that life on earth is only about 4.5 billion years old.

     The Voyagers could survive long enough for life itself to die out completely and see it re-evolve again.

     The scale is boggling.