Why can't Earth create a rocket or probe or something to explore the rest of our galaxy?

Question

We've gotten pictures of Pluto, and that's pretty far out in our solar system. Can't we go out of our solar system... even further? Is anything stopping us?

Answer 1

$$$$$$$$MONEY$$$$$$$$

Answer 2

Our galaxy is Lightyears across. The most limiting factor is that it would take many many years to get to distant points in our galaxy, and when a probe (if it can get that far) is that far away, it would take years for a signal sent from earth to reach it and vice versa. To traverse the rest of our galaxy without running into a massive body that pulls our probe into its orbit (or crashing down) is almost impossible. Another issue is a fuel source that can last long enough.

Answer 3

Alpha Centauri is the nearest star to Earth, except the sun. It is seven thousand times further away from us than Pluto is. It will take a long time (longer than we're going to live) before any of our interstellar space probes reaches any of the stars in the directions that they're moving toward. Those stars are much further away from us than Alpha Centauri is.

Asking why people can't explore the rest of our galaxy is like asking why a clump of eucaryote cells floating in the surf near a shore don't build submarines and explore all of the sea shells on the bottom of the whole ocean.

Answer 4

we actually did. some probe fell out of orbit a couple of years ago and is like millions of miles away and is in a completely different solar system or galaxy now and it sent some of the pictures from there here!!

Answer 5

In fact, there are several such probes that have now passed far beyond the orbit of Pluto.  Trouble is, it takes years to get that far, and even nuclear-powered probes have a limited life span.  We do not have the ability to build a probe that would continue to send back messages by the time it got to the nearest star.  And even if one could, it would be tens of thousands of years before it got there and we'd hear that message - and we're not likely to be around that long!

Answer 6

what's stopping us mostly is the sheer distance and our limitation of speed (sure 20,000 mph might seem fast to us, but when you compare it to other stellar objects, that's far from 'fast'... more into that is the fuel problem..... after a certain ammount of fuel, you're having to use fuel just to get the fuel into orbit.... by the time you've spent off most of that fuel, you can't go very far into space.

consider this... it took YEARS for pheonix to get from earth to mars.... and mars is our NEIGHBOR

there are other technologies, such as solar sails...which in theory scientists think over time they could accelerate an object to close to the speed of light.... but that is totally unproven, and millions of dollars would be lost if it didn't work. too much of a gamble for anyone who has that much money to front for development.

Answer 7

It is not so easy. The voyager 2 space craft has gone far past Neptune (it never went near Pluto, which was on the other side of the solar system at the time) and is still going out of the solar system at about at 30,000 MPH and sending back information. But it isn't taking pictures, partly because it is getting too low on power to use the camera, but mostly because there is nothing out there to take a picture of. It may be  billions of miles past Neptune but it is many TRILLIONS of miles from the NEAREST other star, so Neptune is STILL the closest thing to it, and it is too far behind to see now. The distance to the stars if SO much greater than the distances to close by things like Neptune or Pluto that it is ridiculous. All the stars you can see at night without a telescope are actually bigger and brighter than the Sun (smaller, dimmer stars exist but you need a telescope to even see them). Just imagine how far away they must be if they can look so dim to us.

Answer 8

we actually haven't made anything that can travel to the edge of the Solar System in anything like a reasonable time frame.

the Pioneers and Voyagers are way out there, but the Oort cloud is huge beyond belief and they havent gotten that far, yet.

lots of ppl call that the 'edge' and say they are 'outside the solar system' but I dont.

once they exit the shock wave they have a long long journey thru the primal junk our Solar system was made from.

final answer... its just too BIG!

Answer 9

Yes, extreme distance.  Even though the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is a "mere" 4.3 light years away, it would take one of our probes thousands of years to get there.

Answer 10

We have. The Voyager probes...are now...out past our solar system.

The reason we haven't explored the rest of the galaxy with probes...is because...we just don't have that technology quite yet.

The Voyager probes left Earth 30 years ago...and are now  just a little past our solar system.

It's all a matter of technology....that's it!!

Once we get that technology....I have no doubt..that we will be exploring farther..and farther..as time goes by.

Answer 11

Hmmmm, I guess you have not read/heard about those Mars explorer spacecraft yet....P.S. Will you 3 balloon heads that gave me thumbs down, explain what is wrong with my answer..

Answer 12

Hmm..

You might be too young to know about Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10, and Pioneer 11 then.. Voyager 1 is already outside of the solar system, and eventually Voyager 2 and the Pioneers will be too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1

The links to the other probes are found within this.