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Attached to the Voyager probes are the golden records, which are essentially messages-in-a-bottle sent out into the vast sea of interstellar space, containing, of course, the "message of humanity". Although the primary purposes of these records may have merely been commemorative - and not an actual attempt to come in contact with extraterrestrial life - I think most people have an infinitesimal hope that someday in the far future an extraterrestrial civilization will retrieve these records and "learn of the human species".

Now, suppose another extraterrestrial species has done the same thing, and one of their "Voyager probes" (carrying it's own "golden record") comes travelling straight towards us. For simplicity lets assume that its composition is very similar, if not identical, to our Voyager probes. My question is, if it came near Earth, would we be able to retrieve it? An important qualifying question would be, how close would it need to come for us to even detect it in the first place?

I know this question is quite speculative and loose, but I think it's an interesting thought.

Arturo don Juan
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    while being able to detect it is an important pre-requisite, and adding "how close would it need to come for us to even detect it in the first place?" to the question detail is a good change, the question is still about recovery, so changing the title isn't a good edit. –  Oct 28 '17 at 20:53
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    As an off-topic aside I can imagine a case where our space technology could conceivably overtake Voyager. We could travel to it and back again well before it'll ever reach another system. With that in mind it may well have been better to use Voyager as a time capsule with messages to our future selves ;) – Lamar Latrell Oct 29 '17 at 00:32
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    We may well be able to detect it if it was heading toward us. In early November 2007 the Rosetta spacecraft was briefly mistaken for a near-Earth asteroid about 20 m (66 ft) in diameter by an astronomer of the Catalina Sky Survey and was given the provisional designation 2007 VN84. Calculations showed that it would pass very close to Earth, which led to speculation that it could impact Earth. However, astronomer Denis Denisenko recognised that the trajectory matched that of Rosetta – Dave Gremlin Oct 29 '17 at 17:59
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    Does the thing hitting the earth count as retrieval? ;-) – Thomas Oct 30 '17 at 14:58
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    We had our first interstellar visitor the other day actually, and we still aren't 100% positive what it even was. Most likely an asteroid though. – rclev Oct 30 '17 at 17:45
  • @rclev Could you provide a reference to what you're talking about? – Arturo don Juan Oct 30 '17 at 18:12
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    @ArturodonJuan https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/small-asteroid-or-comet-visits-from-beyond-the-solar-system – rclev Oct 30 '17 at 19:18
  • hi @ArturodonJuan - your question is unanswerable as is. Necause "near us" is unfortunately incredibly vague in terms of space issues. You must state how near you mean: 1) touching out atmosphere 2) as close as our own satellites 3) as close as our moon 4) as close as our sun 5) as close as pluto 6) as close as the nearest star to us. Please state which you mean. – Fattie Dec 06 '17 at 14:00

2 Answers2

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We should assume that there is no possibility to communicate with the extraterrestrial Voyager. The probe would be out of power, the antenna is not directed to Earth and we don’t know the frequency, modulation and protocol for communication. Therefore the probe may be detected by radar from Earth only.

The asteroid Apophis was detected by radar over a distance of 0.192 AU, see this NASA page. But the probe is much smaller than Apophis and the radar echo would be very weak. I guess radar detection would be possible for a distance of some hundred kilometers distance from Earth.

But to retrieve the probe we would need to build a special spacecraft to fly to the probe, enclose it into a return capsule with heat shield for reentry and to fly back to earth. For the design of the return capsule we should know the size (width, depth and height) and mass of the probe with good precision.

Will the necessary spacecraft be ready before the extraterrestrial probe is to far away? I think it would be too difficult for our available technology.

But if we detect the probe by radar, would we recognise it as an extraterrestrial probe? We would need much more information than only a radar echo. An optical image from a very close distance would be necessary, less than kilometers. A picture with much more resolution than a picture of the ISS made from ground.

Uwe
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    we wouldn't need to build the reentry vehicle for it to capture it - as in ARM we "just" need to get it into orbit nearby where we can study it, and at our leisure decide if we want to bring it back and if so design a vehicle to do that.. I rather suspect the majority would rather redirect it into the sun than land it. –  Oct 28 '17 at 19:04
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    But to get the probe into an Earth orbit we need to know the size and mass of the probe too to design a docking adapter and the necessary delta-v thrust for orbit insertion. – Uwe Oct 28 '17 at 19:19
  • ARM proposed a bag, but we would need an estimate of its mass. –  Oct 28 '17 at 19:21
  • ARM considered up to 500 tonnes - which is enough for a voyager like probe, and the radar signature would be enough to size a bag. Alternately A Study into the Sustainable Disposal of End-of-Life Satellites suggests harpoons and tethers for its "Hunter" craft (from memory). –  Oct 28 '17 at 19:30
  • If we didn't know the Voyagers were out there and they weren't pointed at us, would an astronomer ever find them? Highly unlikely. +1 – Mazura Oct 28 '17 at 20:00
  • Once it warms up to say 100 or 200 Kelvin it will be potentially visible in thermal IR searches for NEOs at several million km. Chances are low that it would actually find itself in the right place to be seen at the right time, but higher than chances it would happen to be in a super high power radar beam. Also, do you think you could add a link or reference to the radar observation of Apophis at 0.192 AU, that's pretty amazing! – uhoh Oct 29 '17 at 16:42
  • I know this is an old thread, but another option would be not to try and recover it at all but just send another probe to investigate the probe. That would enormously decrease the delta v requirements, since we'd only need to catch up with it, rather than first catching up and then slowing it down again. It would presumably be moving very fast, so delta v would be a big issue. – N. Virgo Nov 13 '21 at 06:35
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I think the other answers have made an unnecessary assumption. Namely, that upon detection we have to retrieve it before it starts moving away from us.

I don't think that's necessary (albeit obviously preferable). All we'd have to do is plot its course with sufficient accuracy to be able to predict its future course. Assuming it passes close enough for detection which this answer addresses, then it should be feasible to predict its future motion given that we can do this for asteroids.

Having done that, we can then work on the technology to overtake and retrieve it at our leisure.

JBentley
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    Overtaking and retrieving it means we need to reverse course and come back to us which I'd have to assume would be way too much of a delta velocity to achieve, at least in this lifetime. – Scott Oct 29 '17 at 15:03
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    we definitely couldn't retrieve it if it had left the solar system –  Oct 29 '17 at 17:30
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    Retrieving it after it passed by would be at least 60 times more difficult then launching it: https://what-if.xkcd.com/38/ – vsz Oct 29 '17 at 18:09
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    @vsz And if concrete proof of an extraterrestrial civilization just flew by our system, we would absolutely be willing to spend those resources to bring it back. – Ray Oct 30 '17 at 12:47
  • @scott The question wasn't, "would it be extremely difficult to retrieve it?", it was "if it came near Earth, would be able to retrieve it?". Since the other answers essentially said "no", on the basis that it's a one-shot deal, I think my point is an important and valid one. – JBentley Oct 30 '17 at 15:20
  • @JCRM Do you have a citation that proves either (a) the technology to retrieve an object beyond our solar system is theoretically impossible, or (b) that humans will never develop said technology? Note that the question isn't about whether we can retrieve the object now. It didn't set a time limit. – JBentley Oct 30 '17 at 15:22
  • The "What If" referenced by vsz, above gives an idea of the scale of the problem, and the timespan. We coudn't get Voyager back here in my lifetime. if we launched tomorrow.

    I think we could manage a photographic flyby - provided we realised what it was in time and had the political will, and that might provide enough interest to make a recovery attempt an option, but coming up with a recovery craft with sufficient autonomy to track, capture and retrieve it is quite a big ask.

     –  Oct 30 '17 at 18:13
  • The question asks if we could, not whether a hypothetical future us could.

    I believe, with a more developed space infrastructure it would be possible with today's or near-future technology, such as that envisioned by Project Troy.

     –  Oct 30 '17 at 18:15