How much faster Voyager 1 is than a bullet or a space shuttle will make you rethink speed

How much faster the most distant spacecraft, Voyager 1, is than a bullet or a space shuttle will make you rethink speed as you know it.

We all know bullets and rockets are fast, but when you line them up next to Voyager 1, you start to realize that our whole idea of ‘fast’ doesn’t even scratch the surface.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 has been travelling through space for almost half a century.

Right now, it’s moving at around 61,200 km per hour (about 38,000 mph) – that’s fast enough to get from New York to London in under five minutes.

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Voyager 1 is going where no manmade thing has gone before

Back in 1977, NASA launched Voyager 1 into space, it’s been travelling for almost 50 years and will soon be one light-day away from Earth – a massive feat.

Initially tasked with studying the solar system’s outer planets like Jupiter and Saturn, its mission was extended when it crossed over into interstellar space, where no manmade thing has gone before.

Now its current goals are to explore the edge of the sun and to continue sending back data about its surroundings in interstellar space. 

It’s travelling at a crazy speed, moving at around 61,200 km per hour (about 38,000 mph), you would be able to get from New York to London in five minutes if you travel at the same speed as the historic spacecraft.

Voyager 1 is the most distant spacecraft humanity has ever built, but it’s hard to comprehend its speed, so if it’s compared to something we know, we can see how truly fast it goes.

A typical 9mm bullet leaves the barrel at about 1,200 feet per seconds, that’s 366 meters per second, or roughly 1,300 km per hour for us, that’s blindingly quick, but Voyager 1 is about 46 times faster.

Think about that: you fire a bullet, blink once, and Voyager would already be dozens of bullets’ lengths ahead.

It’s going fast enough to orbit Earth in 1.5 hours

The Space Shuttle was humanity’s speed demon, tearing around Earth at 28,160 km per hour (around 7,800 meters per second) – that’s fast enough to orbit the entire planet in just an hour and a half.

But even that isn’t enough: Voyager 1 is still moving at more than twice the Shuttle’s top speed.

Take one of the fastest rifle rounds in history – the .220 Swift.

It can hit around 4,200 feet per second, about 1,280 meters per second, which is extreme by Earth standards.

Voyager 1 is still 13 times faster and it would leave even the record-breaking bullet far behind in it’s rearview.

What makes Voyager 1 so jaw-dropping isn’t just the raw velocity, it’s the perspective because our ‘fast’ machines, from supercars to fighter jets to space shuttles, look incredible on Earth.

But, compared to a spacecraft from the late 1970s, they suddenly feel slow.

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