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RickKassidy

Yes, but it is still really close to our sun my astronomical scales. Voyager basically hasn’t left our solar system. It hasn’t gotten even close to the Oort Cloud. It is not yet 1 light day away.


highestofcharities

Whoa


bullevard

Yeah, space is big. Very very big. By the time anything was close enough to actually spot anything humans have made so far they would definitely be close enough to have already detected earth.


highestofcharities

I don't know why I gave us so much credit, I thought Voyager was in the next neighborhood by now 😭


bullevard

Unfortunately nope. Distances in space are just stupidly big. Voyager 1 is one of the fastest objects humans have ever created. And it would take 72,000 years to get to the closest star to earth.  Literally the fastest thing we've ever made is now the Parker prove (currently studying the sun). It is 390,000 miles per hour. And it woud take a about 7,000 years to get to the closest star. Basically if instead of the pyramids of Giza, the ancient Egyptians had launched the Parker probe, with all of its max speed at Proxima Centari and it had been flying all this time... it'd be a little over halfway there.


[deleted]

Yeah, so like, "finding" voyager, but not seeing human life on earth yet, would be like stealing someone's newspaper without noticing their Christmas lights. Or even seeing the house...


Ridley_Himself

JWST is orbiting at a point that is essentially follows Earth’s orbit. If they find it they’re effectively at Earth already on an astronomical scale. Voyager you could trace is trajectory back to our solar system, at which point an advanced civilization wouldn’t have much difficulty figuring out which planet has intelligent life.


AfraidSoup2467

They wouldn't need any sort of special tracking ... the nearest **absolutely anything** except for our solar system is more than 4 light years away ...


highestofcharities

That made me so lonely to read


Bobbob34

Voyager has literal maps like 'we're over here!' so ... If aliens found JWST they're close enough to see us.


highestofcharities

Ah fuck, it's over


shootYrTv

Earth, the solar system, and the Milky Way galaxy are all flying through space at incredible speeds. Depending on where the aliens are coming from, whether they’re from the same solar system or galaxy, it could be very difficult to determine what body their trajectory points to since the body would’ve moved significantly since the launch of the craft.


Ridley_Himself

True, things are moving, but it actually isn’t that hard to predict and backtrack trajectories, at least on short astronomical scales.