Voyager Won't Reach Another Star for 40,000 Years

The Voyager probes are the fastest things we have ever launched into deep space, and even they need 40,000 years to reach another star.

Voyager 1 is moving at 38,000 miles an hour, fast enough to cross the United States in under five minutes. Yet space is so vast that even this speed barely closes the gap between stars.

Neither Voyager is aimed at a star. They simply coast outward along the paths their planetary flybys set decades ago. In roughly 40,000 years, Voyager 1 will drift within about 1.6 light-years of a red dwarf called Gliese 445, while Voyager 2 passes another dim star around the same time. Neither will stop or slow down. They will just keep gliding through the empty dark, long after we have lost contact.

Long after the Sun swells and swallows the Earth, billions of years from now, the Voyagers will still be drifting the galaxy. They may prove to be the longest-lasting things humanity ever makes.

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