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From: barron@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Daniel P. Barron)
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space
Subject: Re: Voyager Interstellar Trajectory
Message-ID: <13951@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 29 Aug 89 13:30:35 GMT
References: <7525@ecsvax.UUCP> <44600002@primerd> <980@corpane.UUCP> <4255@utastro.UUCP> <62446@philabs.Philips.Com>
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Reply-To: barron@eniac.seas.upenn.edu.UUCP (Daniel P. Barron)
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In article <62446@philabs.Philips.Com> rfc@briar.philips.com.UUCP (Robert Casey) writes:
>In article <4255@utastro.UUCP> terry@astro.UUCP (Terry Hancock) writes:

>>>The answer was that in 8,000 years it will fly by Barnard's Star, in 20,000 or
>>>so it will pass Proxima Centauri, and then the Oort cloud.

>I saw in the Planetary Report a diagram of sorts that described some
>"approaches" of some stars by Voyager 2.  It was something like "When Voyager
>2 is 1/4 ly from the Sun, it makes its closest approach to (some star) and it
>comes as "close" as 4 lys.  Not exactly a near miss!  

Am I completely crazy or do I remember someone on "Neptune All Night" saying
that Voyager two will (eventually) pass within a light year of Sirius?  Again,
not exactly a near miss, but I was wondering if anyone else heard this.

While somewhat interesting, Neptune All Night did have a large amount of
specious commentary, so this factlet could be wrong.  Did anyone else
watch the show?  It originated at the studios of (TA DA!) my very own PBS
station, WHYY in Philadelphia.  They showed "real time" images coming in
from Neptune on the night of closest approach.  Most of the images were
only 6 minutes old!  (i.e. received 6 minutes ago, sent 4 hours, 12 minutes
ago)

Of course, WHYY took the oppurtunity to interrupt every 20 minutes to tell
you that "you can become part of history by calling 1-800-228-1234 and 
pledging your support to channel 12!"

db



________________________________Daniel Barron__________________________________
______________________________________ ________________________________________
"There are four types of homicide:    | E-mail: barron@eniac.seas.upenn.edu
 felonious, excusable, justifiable    |         barron@wharton.upenn.edu
 and praiseworthy."  --Ambrose Bierce |         barron@dacth01.bitnet
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