At 96.4 astronomical units (96.4 times the Earth/Sun distance) Eris and its
moon Dysnomia are currently the most distant known natural objects in our solar
system. Voyager 1 is now nearly 148 AU away. In contrast, Pluto (at its
maximum distance) is only 49 AU from the sun. So voyager is three times the
distance to Pluto, and one and a half times as far as Eris.
NASA engineers decided to see if the 40 year old backup thrusters could be
kicked into service to adjust the spacecraft's trajectory. It took the signal
they sent 19 and a half hours to reach the little craft, and 19 and a half
hours for them to receive its positive response. The course correction worked,
the thrusters fired millisecond pulses, and all is working well with the little
vehicle.
It's batteries should continue to keep it going almost ten more years, after
which it will continue on cold and dead. 20 light hours in 40 years, 40 light
hours in 80 years, 80 light hours 160 years from now... There are 8766 hours
in a year. So in 17,500 years Voyager will be a light year away, less than a
quarter of the distance to the next nearest star to ours. That star is in the
sky of the southern hemisphere--Voyager 1 is headed out towards Camelopardalis,
sort of between the Big Dipper and the Cassiopeia. It will drift 1.6 light
years by a star in that constellation in about 40,000 years and begin passing
out of the plane of the galaxy in about 13 million years.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/02/rocket-blast-from-the-past-voyager-1-fires-thrusters-last-used-in-1980/
Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo
