Voyager is fantastic, but it’s still way, way closer to the solar system than anything else.
An excerpt from Wikipedia:
At this rate, it would need about 17,565 years to travel a single light-year.[78] To compare, Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, is about 4.2 light-years (2.65×105 AU) distant. If the spacecraft was traveling in the direction of that star, it would take 73,775 years to reach it. Voyager 1 is heading in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus.
Yes, and they are still on a galactic orbit, not a solar orbit. They are, unquestionably, the first things we’re sending off, regardless of whether they arrive anywhere substantial.
30 years ago we didn’t even know for sure if planets around other stars was a common thing and had no expectation we’d actually know their chemical compositions
If you count Voyager, we already have.
Otherwise … Yea, I’ll be surprised if society in general even makes it to 2100 unscathed.
Voyager is fantastic, but it’s still way, way closer to the solar system than anything else.
An excerpt from Wikipedia:
Yes, and they are still on a galactic orbit, not a solar orbit. They are, unquestionably, the first things we’re sending off, regardless of whether they arrive anywhere substantial.
This is why I don’t get excited to hear about the discovery of ‘Earth-like planets’ 182 light years away.
30 years ago we didn’t even know for sure if planets around other stars was a common thing and had no expectation we’d actually know their chemical compositions
Bad news with the AMOC modeling yesterday. 2100 is starting to seem optimistic…