Tuesday, August 16, 2011

How far have our probes traveled?

Voyager 1 launched in September 1977 is now the most distant man made object. It is now 10.2 billion miles (109 astronomical units, or 14 light hours) from earth. It will likely keep this record for a long time since of the other probes which are leaving the solar system Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11 and Voyager 2 are all moving more slowly than Voyager 1's 11miles per second. New Horizons - the probe heading for Pluto is moving faster, but by the time it reaches Voyager 1s position, it will have slowed.

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