@sundogplanets that's fascinating, and brings up so many more questions for me! 😂

How did we choose the direction to send Voyager off in? How far out of the plane of earths orbit around the sun is it?

I take it that the plane of earths orbit around the sun is stable relative to the rest of universe, on human timescales at least, or where constellations are in the sky would change year over year? Why? Are other planetary orbits similarly stable?

The 🌌, so interesting!

@sundogplanets Thanks for making me trip on this.

What if Voyager had been launched in March instead of September. Would it move faster?

@sundogplanets

And in 6 months it will be reversed.

@sundogplanets

One day we will manage to get crewed missions flying at good enough speed.

And then one of nice missions would be sending a team to Voyagers. Repair them, fuel up and let them continue the journey. Maybe add some companion to handle communication a bit better.

Of course the problem would be to find them first ;D

@sundogplanets If you want to look at something very cool, assume earth is your still point (immobile, etc) and then look at the orbital paths of every thing orbiting earth, and voyager's orbital path.

It's not particularly 'useful' to look at the solar system that way, but it is interesting (and gives cool orbital mechanic velocities that help you get an intuitive grasp of launch windows from earth!).

Also I love that we can just 'decide' that everything orbits earth, and be Right*.