Spacecraft and Space Exploration
To date five spacecraft (Voyagers 1 and 2, Pioneers 10 and 11 and New Horizons) are on trajectories which will take them out of the Solar System and into interstellar space. Barring an unlikely collision, the craft should persist indefinitely.
| Years from now | Event | |
|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | Pioneer 10 passes within 3.8 light years of Barnard's Star. | |
| 25,000 | The Arecibo message, a collection of radio data transmitted on 16 November 1974, reaches its destination, the globular cluster Messier 13. This is the only interstellar radio message sent to such a distant region of the galaxy. Assuming a similar mode of communication is employed, it should take at least as long again for any reply to reach Earth. | |
| 40,000 | Voyager 1 passes within 1.6 light years of AC+79 3888, a star in the constellation Camelopardalis. | |
| 50,000 | The KEO space time capsule, if it is launched, will reenter Earth's atmosphere. | |
| 296,000 | Voyager 2 passes within 4.3 light years of Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. | |
| 300,000 | Pioneer 10 passes within 3 light years of Ross 248. | |
| 2 million | Pioneer 10 passes near the bright star Aldebaran. | |
| 4 million | Pioneer 11 passes near one of the stars in the constellation Aquila. | |
| 8 million | The LAGEOS satellites' orbits will decay, and they will re-enter Earth's atmosphere, carrying with them a message to any far future descendants of humanity, and a map of the continents as they are expected to appear then. |
Read more about this topic: Timeline Of The Far Future
Famous quotes containing the words space and/or exploration:
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