xkcd voyager 1

Star Wars Voyager 1

There's some flexibility depending on your standards for measuring runtime and the various special editions. If you still want to have a party, I'm sure you can find some combination that works.

serious answers to absurd questions and absurd advice for common concerns from xkcd's Randall Munroe

Distant Death

What is the farthest from Earth that any Earth thing has died?

—Amy from NZ

With Halloween approaching, I guess it's the season for death-related questions .

The farthest from Earth that any human has died is about 167 kilometers, [1] Plus or minus a kilometer. when three cosmonauts on Soyuz 11—Vladislav Volkov, Viktor Patsayev, and Georgi Dobrovolsky—suffered a depressurization accident while returning to Earth. They were moving at about 7,755 meters per second at the time, which is also the highest forward speed at which any human has ever died.

Volkov, Patsayev, and Dobrovolsky are the only humans who have died in space. Every other fatal space accident—and, for that matter, every other human death of any kind—happened within 70 kilometers of the surface. [2] Morbid list from my notes: The crew of Columbia died at just over 60 km, Pyotr Dolgov died at roughly 24 km, James Zwayer died at 23 km, Michael J. Adams died at 20 km, Ying Chin Wang died at 20 km, and Rudolf Anderson died at between 18 and 23 km. Jack Weeks presumably died somewhere between 20 and 0 km the ocean surface.

But humans don't hold this record.

For starters, there are plenty of test animals which have died in space. But, to be honest, I can't bring myself to collect statistics about them. I mean, at least the human pilots who died had all volunteered and understood what was happening to them. So instead, I'm going to skip straight to the organisms that are the real answer to Amy's question: Microbes.

Spacecraft carry bacteria, although we do our best to sterilize them before and during launch. This sterilization is important, because we don't want to contaminate another planet or Moon with Earth bacteria. There are two big reasons for this—one ethical and one practical. The ethical one is that we don't want to accidentally introduce Earth life that disrupts and/or destroys a native ecosystem. The practical one is that if we find life on some other planet, we don't want to have to struggle to figure out whether it was contamination from one of our probes.

But sterilizing spacecraft is hard. NASA has an employee specifically assigned to this task, and she has possibly the best job title of all time: Planetary Protection Officer . [3] Another competitor for this title is Philip M. Breedlove, who has the job title Supreme Allied Commander .

The Planetary Protection Officer is responsible for avoiding spacecraft contamination, although there are occasionally problems .

A 2008 study of lunar missions estimated that spacecraft carried 1.98x10 11 viable microorganisms per vehicle. Spacecraft such as the Voyagers and Pioneers , which were ultimately headed for deep space, were also not fully sterilized—the official planetary protection strategy was "try not to hit any planets."

Voyager certainly carries lots of bacterial spores. If we take the number from the 2008 paper as a (very rough) estimate of the number of microbes Voyager might carry, we can try to figure out how many might still be alive.

Some microorganisms can survive for a long time in a vacuum. One study found that the majority of bacteria that spent six years in space survived—though only if a shade protected them from the Sun's UV light. Other studies have agreed that radiation is the main thing to worry about, and the radiation environment inside a spacecraft is complex. The bottom line is that we just don't know for sure how long bacteria can survive in deep space.

But we can still give part of an answer Amy's question. If we assume that 1 in 1,000 bacterial spores on Voyager were of a space-tolerant variety, and 1 in 10 of those is somewhere on the craft where UV light doesn't reach it, then that still leaves on the order of 10 million viable bacterial spores traveling on Voyager.

If they suffer a death rate of 30% per six years, as in one of the studies, then there would still be a million of them alive after 50 years, dying at a rate of 1 every 10 minutes. On the other hand, the author of the 2008 study speculated that microbes could avoid hits from cosmic radiation for extremely long time periods, and other sources have speculated about survival for thousands or even millions of years. But no one really knows.

For our Voyager bacteria, there's a higher death rate at first, for spores in more exposed positions, and a much lower one for the more protected ones. Today, it's quite possible there are thousands of bacterial spores still alive on Voyager 1 and 2, lurking quietly in the dead of space. Every few hours, days, or months, one of them degrades enough to no longer be viable.

And each one sets a new record for the most distant Earth thing to die.

Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

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• Telescopes and space missions

Voyager 1, where art thou?

By Tushna Commissariat

It’s a running joke at the Physics World news desk – the exact location of the Voyager 1 probe and how often we end up writing about how it really has nearly left the solar system this time. So we decided to wait and watch when the news broke on Wednesday evening this week that the probe had left the solar system for sure (again).

Unsurprisingly, the next morning our inboxes included a slightly sheepish “status update” message from NASA. “The Voyager team is aware of reports today that NASA’s Voyager 1 has left the solar system,” says Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. “It is the consensus of the Voyager science team that Voyager 1 has not yet left the solar system or reached interstellar space. In December 2012 the Voyager science team reported that Voyager 1 is within a new region called ‘the magnetic highway’ where energetic particles changed dramatically. A change in the direction of the magnetic field is the last critical indicator of reaching interstellar space, and that change of direction has not yet been observed.”

This morning I came across the latest xkcd webcomic (above), wherein former-physicist-turned-comic-artist Randall Munroe perfectly encapsulates the Voyager 1 location conundrum. The rollover text for the comic strip reads “So far Voyager 1 has ‘left the solar system’ by passing through the termination shock three times, the heliopause twice, and once each through the heliosheath, heliosphere, heliodrome, auroral discontinuity, Heaviside layer, trans-Neptunian panic zone, magnetogap, US Census Bureau Solar System statistical boundary, Kuiper gauntlet, Oort void and crystal sphere holding the fixed stars.”  I couldn’t help but laugh!

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Category:Space probes

• It may approach the Moon ; enter interplanetary space; flyby, orbit, or land on other planetary bodies; or approach interstellar space.
• An entire subcategory has also been made just to cover all the comics about Mars rovers .

Click to expand for a more detailed explanation:

Explanation [ edit ]

• One comic is even named after Voyager 1 : 1189: Voyager 1 . It tallies the number of times the space probe has left the solar system (22!)
• Another comic is named after both, 2624: Voyager Wires , and explains how they communicate with Earth via trailing copper wires. Only one of them are shown though, but both are mentioned.
• In 482: Height Voyager 1 and Pioneer 10 are shown. (They are labeled but there is also a third space probe near Voyager 1 that is not labeled. Being close to Voyager 1 it could be assumed to be Voyager 2, but the “height” may rather indicate that is should be Pioneer 11).
• In 502: Dark Flow the Pioneer Anomaly , observed for the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 space probes, is mentioned in the title text.
• 1246: Pale Blue Dot references the Pale Blue Dot a picture of the Earth taken in 1990 by Voyager 1.
• In 1276: Angular Size both voyager probes projections are shown in the last panel.
• In 1461: Payloads several space probes are shown in the chart including both Voyager 2 and Pioneer 10.
• In 2253: Star Wars Voyager 1 the name is again used and compares the distance of Voyager 1 in light minutes from Earth to the total run time of the nine episodes of Star Wars, the last to be released 3 weeks before this comic.
• In 2414: Solar System Compression Artifacts the Voyager probe is mentioned and depicted once again. It adds yet another tally to the number of times the probe has left the solar system.
• One of the the what if? articles is called Voyager about retrieving it again...
• Voyager 1 is mentioned twice in Thing Explainer both in Worlds around the Sun (where 25 other probes were also mentioned including Voyager 2 as well) and in The sky at night . It is called Big Trip Taker One in the book.
• 1621: Fixion depicts Rosetta and the Fixion explains the flyby anomaly experienced the first time (of three) the probe got close to Earth.
• This probe is also depicted in Thing Explainer in Worlds around the Sun where it is called Little world watcher .
• When the Rosetta mission ended a new comic about it was released using the name of the probe as the title: 1740: Rosetta . This continues a trend of naming comics after space probes. Until recently only the mars rover had this honour but in the same year as this cosmic was released also the space probe Juno was used like this, see below.
• This probe is also featured in Thing Explainer in Worlds around the Sun where it is called Special Engine Boat .
• 1551: Pluto was released on the day of New Horizons closest approach to Pluto on 2015-07-14 as a tribute to the achievement.
• On the same day the what if? New Horizons was released.
• 1547: Solar System Questions asks several questions about among other the Philae lander, about Pluto and Charon , stating we have the answer soon, a clear reference to New Horizons, about Ceres saying we are working on it, a clear reference to Dawn and about both the Pioneer Anomaly and the flyby anomaly, thus referencing at least five of the comics mentioned above.
• Shortly after, in 1727: Number of Computers , the computer on Juno is mentioned together with those on both the Galileo orbiter and its probe , the only other space probe to have entered into orbit around Jupiter.
• 2262: Parker Solar Probe is about the Parker Solar Probe which is currently getting closer and closer to the sun, reaching its closest approach in 2025, 5 years after the release of the comic. It had already for a couple of years been the closest mad made object to the Sun.
• The last Pioneer reference in Solar System Questions take these space probes up to four comics, but they still fall short of the Voyager space probes with six comics.
• In 1244: Six Words Cueball shows a possible trajectory path for a space probe.
• In 1337: Hack the ISEE-3/ICE space probe is taken over by elite hackers .
• The Mars rover Sojourner from the Pathfinder expedition was later referenced in 1585: Similarities (also only in the title text ) on the day the movie was released,
• In 1643: Degrees regarding the use of non- SI units in the US, the Mars Climate Orbiter space probe is referenced through mentioning that We lost a Mars probe over this crap which relates to the fact that the cause of failure for this probe was the use of different units by two different teams working on the same part of the probe.
• As mentioned above one of the entries is called Voyager and another New Horizons . There may be more...
• The Curiosity rover has it's own explanation Red World Space Car , it is also depicted in the last explanation Sky Toucher inside the skyscraper, and in Worlds around the Sun see below.
• In The sky at night the location of Voyager 1 is also shown.
• One probe is shown in both drawings (Rosetta).
• One probe is shown in one drawing and the rover (Curiosity) in the other.
• One mission deployed both a rover and a lander, both are depicted (Pathfinder)
• Two mission also deployed landers, which are shown but not named)
• One probe is shown but not named
• From the above it can be found that the 36 drawn probes represents 31 missions, only one of which failed (unclear which this was see below), and only one not named, and thus also a bit unclear.
• In the book the probes have of course been given different name using the 1000 most common words. Some of these have been mentioned above when the probe has also been featured in comics and for the named mars rovers these have also been listed with more detail in the explanation for that category.
• Big Trip Taker One - Voyager 1 (see above).
• Big Trip Taker Two - Voyager 2 (see above).
• Big World boat - Galileo was the only probe to enter into orbit around Jupiter , until Juno (see above).
• Ring World boat - Cassini–Huygens is the only probe to enter into orbit around Saturn .
• Special Engine Boat - Dawn (see above).
• Red World Space Car - Mars Science Laboratory i.e. the probe that delivered Curiosity.
• ? - A probe is shown but not named which visits Mercury after a flyby of Venus . It is probably Mariner 10 but MESSENGER would also fit the bill, except that it took two flybys of Venus. However both missions also took three flybys of Mercury and only one is shown...
• ? - One of the Apollo missions is shown on the Moon , but also not named, although this is not a space probe since it was manned, and the two men are shown next to the landing module.
• Boat Rider Four - Mariner 4
• Boat Rider Six - Mariner 6
• Boat Rider Seven - Mariner 7 . Note that Mariner 9 which was the first to successfully go into orbit is called Sea Goer? See below.
• Red World Four - Mars 4
• Red World Six - Mars 6
• Red World Seven - Mars 7
• Wrong Turn Boat - It is unclear which probe this relates to, as it seems the wrong turn took it away from Mars. There have been two crash landings on Mars recently, one of which is the Mars Climate Orbiter (see above), where a wrong turn took it too steep into the atmosphere were it burned up, but that is not what is depicted. A Russian mission Mars 4 made a unintended flyby but it was due to loss of signal, and not a wrong, but a missed turn. And it is also shown as one of the other probes (see above).
• Special Engine Boat - Dawn (was also shown in the image of the entire Solar System and mentioned above).
• Little world watcher - Rosetta (see above).
• Red World Sky Watcher - MAVEN .
• Red World Visitor - Mars Orbiter Mission
• Red World Watcher - Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
• Fast Red World Boat - Mars Express
• Twenty Oh One Red World Trip - 2001 Mars Odyssey
• Red World Looker - Mars Global Surveyor
• Red World Moon Two - Phobos 2
• Old North Person Two - Viking 2 - the lander that was successfully deployed from this probe was not named but it is shown on the surface below the probe.
• Old North Person One - Viking 1 - the lander that was successfully deployed from this probe was not named but it is shown on the surface below the probe.
• Red World Five - Mars 5
• Red World Three - Mars 3
• Red World Two - Mars 2
• Sea Goer (The One After Eight) - Mariner 9 seems like a mistake that Randall switched the name for those Mariner probes not going into orbit from Boat Rider, to Sea Goer for this one that did... Maybe there were a long time span between drawing the first part and the other, and he forgot that he had already given a name to the Mariner series in the first part?
• Road Finder - Mars Pathfinder .
• Road Taker - Sojourner rover , which means "traveler".
• Good Chances car - Opportunity rover .
• Good Feelings car - Spirit rover .
• Fire Bird lander - Phoenix .
• The Feeling of Wanting to Know Things car - Curiosity rover . The probe that send this rover down, is the only mars probe shown in the drawing of the entire solar system - it is the Mars Science Laboratory which is also mentioned under the name for Curiosity (Red World Space Car) .

Subcategories

This category has only the following subcategory.

• Mars rovers

Pages in category "Space probes"

The following 35 pages are in this category, out of 35 total.

• 482: Height
• 502: Dark Flow
• 618: Asteroid
• 1189: Voyager 1
• 1244: Six Words
• 1246: Pale Blue Dot
• 1276: Angular Size
• 1446: Landing
• 1461: Payloads
• 1476: Ceres
• 1532: New Horizons
• 1536: The Martian
• 1547: Solar System Questions
• 1551: Pluto
• 1621: Fixion
• 1643: Degrees
• 1727: Number of Computers
• 1740: Rosetta
• 1992: SafetySat
• 2014: JWST Delays
• 2079: Alpha Centauri
• 2125: Luna 2
• 2253: Star Wars Voyager 1
• 2262: Parker Solar Probe
• 2264: Satellite
• 2414: Solar System Compression Artifacts
• 2447: Hammer Incident
• 2462: NASA Award
• 2559: December 25th Launch
• 2624: Voyager Wires
• 2645: The Best Camera
• 2765: Escape Speed
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