Hubble Provides Interstellar Road Map for Voyagers’ Galactic Trek

NASA’s two Voyager spacecraft are hurtling through unexplored territory on their road trip beyond our solar system. Along the way, they are measuring the interstellar medium, the mysterious environment between stars. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is providing the road map – by measuring the material along the probes’ future trajectories. Even after the Voyagers run out of electrical power and are unable to send back new data, which may happen in about a decade, astronomers can use Hubble observations to characterize the environment of through which these silent ambassadors will glide.

A preliminary analysis of the Hubble observations reveals a rich, complex interstellar ecology, containing multiple clouds of hydrogen laced with other elements. Hubble data, combined with the Voyagers, have also provided new insights into how our sun travels through interstellar space.

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The Voyagers are my favorite space travelers.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Any estimate on when the Voyager signals will get too weak to be picked out of the background noise? It amazes me that they can be detected even now.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

"Voyager 2 is expected to keep transmitting weak radio messages until at least 2025, over 48 years after it was launched."

I doubt they can be detected without their radio transmission anymore - It would probably be harder than detecting Planet Nine, even though we would have a good idea of where to look as long as they transmit.

I wasn't thinking of optical detection. I'm just wondering how long the radio telescopes will be able to pick out the Voyager's radio transmissions from the static.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Judging by the rate of decline in power the Voyager probes can produce, it's been calculated they will be unable to use even a single instrument by 2025. That would presumably include the radio transmitter.