Will New Horizons Catch Up with the Voyager Spacecraft?

New Horizons and Voyager: A Comparative Analysis

Since the launches of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 in 1977, they have steadily advanced to navigate beyond the confines of our solar system. As of August 2023, Voyager 1, the most distant human-made object from Earth, is approximately 14 billion miles away from Earth, traveling at a speed of about 17 kilometers per second (or around 38,000 miles per hour). In contrast, New Horizons, launched in 2006, conducted a flyby of Pluto in 2015 and is now in the Kuiper Belt, traveling at a lower velocity.

Current Trajectories and Speeds

Despite the interest in whether New Horizons might catch up with the Voyager spacecraft, the trajectories and speeds of the two missions make such a scenario highly unlikely. Key points to note include:

Speed Difference: Voyager 1 travels at 17 km/s, while New Horizons maxes out at about 13 km/s, further dropping to 13 km/s by the time it reaches interstellar space in the 2040s. Direction: New Horizons does not move in the same direction as the Voyagers. This means it is not possible for New Horizons to match or surpass the Voyager's speed and trajectory. Distance: The gap between New Horizons and Voyager 1 is already vast, with Voyager 1 being over 14 billion miles away and New Horizons at around 5 billion miles.

Historical Context and Future Projections

New Horizons will reach the 50 Astronomical Unit (AU) mark on April 18, 2021, and is expected to join Voyager 1 and 2 in interstellar space by the 2040s. Alan Stern, the New Horizons principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, described it as a 'hauntingly beautiful' milestone.

Even if New Horizons were to hypothetically align with Voyager's trajectory, the time and distance required for it to close the gap are astronomically large. Voyager 1's speed advantage, coupled with its substantial lead, ensures that the distance between the two spacecraft will only continue to increase over time.

Technical Analysis and Conclusion

Technically, even if New Horizons were traveling at a hypothetical speed of 20 km/s, the time required to cover the distance between the spacecraft would be immense. Voyager 1 already has a significant head start, and the relative speeds and trajectories suggest that New Horizons will never catch up. In fact, Voyager 1 will continue to pull further ahead, rendering the chase increasingly impossible.

In conclusion, the trajectory and speed differences between New Horizons and the Voyager spacecraft make it highly improbable for New Horizons to ever catch up with the Voyager. As both missions continue to explore the cosmos, the distance between them will likely only grow, marking a fascinating chapter in the history of space exploration.