Why Is It So Difficult To Get Out Of The Solar System? Will We Ever Be Able To Do It?
223Have you ever wondered why, with all our technology, we haven't managed to get out of the solar system yet? We've reached the moon, sent probes to the far reaches of space, but beyond the solar edge? Nothing. Are we trapped in our little cosmic bubble? Today, we'll explore the colossal challenges, historic achievements, and dreams yet to be fulfilled in humanity's most extraordinary odyssey — leaving the solar system and reaching for the stars. Let’s get started.
To understand why it is so difficult to leave the solar system, we must first measure the colossal size of the system in which we live. When we talk about the solar system, we’re not just referring to the planets and their moons. It also includes asteroids, comets, and above all, the vast region known as the Oort Cloud, which could extend up to 100,000 astronomical units beyond the Sun. One astronomical unit is equivalent to the average distance between the Earth and the Sun — about 93 million miles. That means the solar system could span up to 9.3 trillion miles. Can you imagine how big that is?
The size is so enormous that even the fastest human-built spacecraft have barely managed to travel a tiny fraction of that distance. To give an idea, the Voyager 1 probe, launched in 1977, has traveled for more than 45 years at almost 38,000 mph and has barely left what is considered the heliosphere — the bubble of charged particles emanating from the Sun. Despite this, it has not even reached the outer edge of the Oort Cloud, implying it is still far from completely leaving the solar system.
This fact reveals a stark truth: our current technologies are far from being able even to explore the periphery of our cosmic neighborhood. Even if we wanted to send a signal or spacecraft to the outermost regions of the solar system, the time it would take would be measured in the thousands of years. At current speeds, it could take more than 30,000 years to leave the entire solar system. But it's not just about distance. There is also the problem of energy. The laws of physics are clear: for a spacecraft to completely escape the solar system, it must reach solar escape velocity, which in Earth's orbit is around 26 m/s. The fastest human-crafted spacecraft built so far was Apollo 10, which reached about 11 km/s — about 6.8 m/s — less than half of the 26 m/s needed to escape the solar system directly.
So no, it's not that we don't want to go out — it's just that for now, we can’t. The solar system is like a cosmic prison, with invisible walls that are extremely difficult to cross. And every mile we move away from the Sun is a battle against enormous distances, a lack of power, and the limits of our technology. Surprisingly, even our most advanced spacecraft are not equipped to escape the solar system entirely. But why is this so? The reason lies in fundamental physics, fuel limits, and the extreme difficulty of maintaining sufficient speeds for long periods.
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Credits: Ron Miller, Mark A. Garlick / MarkGarlick.com ,Elon Musk/SpaceX/ Flickr
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00:00 Intro
00:40 Measure the colossal size
03:34 How to escape the solar system
05:54 The Voyagers - The Interstellar Messengers
08:38 Traveling to Another Star — Are We Closer or Farther Away Than We Think?
11:21 The Dream of Becoming an Interstellar Species
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#insanecuriosity #solarsystem #spacetravel