Would Voyager return to the solar system if stopped?

[ftg]

Oops that’s period. Need to divide by 2 to get free fall time.

Voyager 1: 227+ years.
Voyager 2: 206+ years.

[Chronos]

Hm, I guess that Voyager’s orbit is a lot more escape than I thought.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

@ftg

Fall time is a special case of Kepler’s Third Law. Using a calculator for that and plugging in 67.5 AU (Half of Voyager 1’s solar distance) as the semi-major axis gives about 554.5 years. Quite a bit more than the 39 years since launch. Lots of different factors including gravity assist as well as current velocity.

For Voyager 2, it’s only 413.4 years…

Fascinating - thanks! I love the Dope.