Editing Voyager 2 (section)

== Future of the probe ==
The probe is expected to keep transmitting weak radio messages until at least the mid-2020s, more than 48 years after it was launched.<ref name="spacecraft lifetime">{{cite web |url=https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/spacecraftlife.html |title=Voyager – Spacecraft – Spacecraft Lifetime |access-date=May 25, 2008 |date=March 15, 2008 |publisher=[[NASA]] [[Jet Propulsion Laboratory]] |archive-date=March 1, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170301102317/http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/spacecraftlife.html |url-status=live }}</ref> NASA says that "The Voyagers are destined—perhaps eternally—to wander the Milky Way."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Future |url=https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/interstellar.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120514175011/http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/interstellar.html |archive-date=May 14, 2012 |access-date=October 13, 2013 |publisher=NASA}}</ref>

''Voyager 2'' is not headed toward any particular star. The nearest star is 4.2 light-years away, and at 15.341 km/s, the spacecraft travels one light-year in about 19,541 years - during which time the nearby stars will also move substantially. In roughly 42,000 years, Voyager 2 will pass the star [[Ross 248]] (10.30 light-years away from Earth) at a distance of 1.7 light-years.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Future stellar flybys of the Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft |journal=Research Notes of the AAS |volume=3 |issue=4 |pages=59 |date=April 3, 2019 |doi=10.3847/2515-5172/ab158e |last1=Bailer-Jones |first1=Coryn A. L. |last2=Farnocchia |first2=Davide |bibcode=2019RNAAS...3...59B|arxiv=1912.03503 |s2cid=134524048 |doi-access=free }}</ref> If undisturbed for [[Timeline of the far future#Humanity and human constructs|296,000 years]], ''Voyager 2'' should pass by the star [[Sirius]] (8.6 light-years from Earth) at a distance of 4.3 light-years.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Baldwin |first1=Paul |title=NASA's Voyager 2 heads for star Sirius... by time it arrives humans will have died out |url=https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/567957/NASA-s-Voyager-2-sets-course-for-star-Sirius-by-time-it-arrives-human-race-will-be-dead |access-date=September 1, 2022 |work=Express.co.uk |date=December 4, 2017 |language=en |archive-date=September 1, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220901052903/https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/567957/NASA-s-Voyager-2-sets-course-for-star-Sirius-by-time-it-arrives-human-race-will-be-dead |url-status=live }}</ref>