5 ms·
Here's a 'wrong' but possibly helpful comparison, in the spirit of football fields: 32 billion kilometers is about 100 times the distance a satellite travels f
by gregshap 3y ago
Here's a 'wrong' but possibly helpful comparison, in the spirit of football fields:
32 billion kilometers is about 100 times the distance a satellite travels from earth to Mars. [1]
That Earth-Mars trip is estimated in the same article to take 4 months, so figure 400 months or 30+ years to shoot another satellite out to reach Voyager 2.
This is ignoring planetary slingshot math, the extra speed to 'catch' voyager 2, and surely lots of other details. Personally I find years and "mars" to be more intuitive in this case than trillions of football fields.
[1]https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/timeline/cruise/#:~:text=The%20cruise%20phase%20begins%20after,miles%20(480%20million%20kilometers) https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/timeline/cruise/#:~:text=The%....