Each month Astronomy magazine -- the best reading money I spend, period -- has a question section called "Ask Astro." Earlier this year, one of the questions Astro answered had to do with the Voyager space probes, which were launched in the 1970s, greatly increased our knowledge of our solar system and are now speeding outwards into interstellar space.
A Mr. Richard Feder, of Ft. Lee, NJ, writes...oh, wait. Wrong bit. Mark from St. Louis, MO, asks Astro if we should expect those space probes to return to Earth. Astro uses the question for a quick and thorough explanation of the idea of escape velocities, or speeds necessary to get out of the gravity well of a planet or star like our Sun. As he points out, the probes are both zipping along far too fast and are well beyond the range where the Sun's gravity could turn them around, so his answer is no, we should not expect the Voyager probes to return to Earth. While he's technically correct, I think Astro would have made a whole lot of new fans if he had given us the answer almost everyone really wants to hear:
"Yes. When we go get them."
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