New answers tagged interstellar-travel
4
As already answered, the Voyager spacecraft (both 1 & 2) lack the velocity required to escape the Milky Way (assuming either is even headed in the right direction), so would only encounter Andromeda when the two galaxies merge in several billion years. As of this writing, the two spacecraft have been operating for some 44 years; there is a limit to how ...
77
Technically, yes
While Voyager 1 lacks the velocity necessary to escape the Milky Way galaxy, it doesn't actually need to. Because the Milky Way galaxy itself will collide and begin to merge with the Andromeda galaxy within about 4.5 billion years. It's unlikely any objects within either galaxy will collide with something in the other. But it's pretty ...
73
no.
Voyager 1 is currently orbiting the center of the Milky Way, which has an escape velocity of $550 \ \text{km}\ \text{s}^{-1}$ at the Sun's position, while the Sun orbits at $\sim 220 \ \text{km}\ \text{s}^{-1}$. Voyager was ejected at $\sim 17 \ \text{km}\ \text{s}^{-1}$, like @user438383 said in a comment, and in the prograde direction, which means, at ...
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