Voyager 1 has left the solar system, sudden changes in cosmic rays indicate

[DreamGypsy]

15. ~Thirty-five thousand years from now, passing 'close' to Alpha-Centauri ...

... the Voyagers might have been our first visitors to the star system nearest to ours. However, the voyagers weren't aimed toward Alpha-Centauri.



The Voyagers will get 'close' to other stars, as explained here:

These two unmanned space probes – Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 – were launched in 1977. They’re now heading out of the solar system. The Voyagers aren’t aimed toward Alpha Centauri, but if they were, they’d take tens of thousands of years to get there. On the other hand, eventually, the Voyagers will pass other stars. In about 40,000 years, Voyager 1 will drift within 1.6 light-years (9.3 trillion miles) of AC+79 3888, a star in the constellation of Camelopardalis. In some 296,000 years, Voyager 2 will pass 4.3 light-years from Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. Hmm, 4.3 light-years. That’s the distance between us and Alpha Centauri.

We will have lost contact with the Voyagers long before then.

Barring any serious spacecraft subsystem failures, the Voyagers may survive until the early twenty-first century (~ 2025), when diminishing power and hydrazine levels will prevent further operation. Were it not for these dwindling consumables and the possibility of losing lock on the faint Sun, our tracking antennas could continue to "talk" with the Voyagers for another century or two!

...so the silent lumps of metal will pass by those solar systems, perhaps being slightly deflected from their courses by a weak gravitational tug.

With millions, or maybe billions, of years of continuing travel, one of the Voyagers might be drawn into a random stellar system and fall into one of its stars. Or, there is an infinitesimal chance that the spacecraft would pass close to a planet or planetesimal, possibly even colliding. If the planet is large enough to have an atmosphere, then the 700 kg mass of our Voyager could leave a brief trail of light across a sky. Will that be in a sky observed by some 'living' form? Will some fragment of the destruction of our satellite strike the ground? Will the life there discover a fragment and marvel at the odd composition of its metals?

The creatures who sent out the message will never know the answers.

Thanks for the post IC.