Question by thief_of_allways: Did Sputnik ever come back to earth? What about Voyager 2, where is it now?
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Answer by Canadian Bacon
Once satellites go out, they never come back (unless they were designed specifically to do so, which is rare.) Usually only manned missions are intended to make a re-entry.
As for Voyager 2, it is currently in the Telescopium constellation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_2#Current_status
Edit:
Sorry, just to clarify:
Satellites usually aren’t intended to comeback to Earth, however they do sometimes re-enter just by “falling out” of orbit years later.
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Chandramohan P.R says
Sputniks were not designed for a safe entry.They lost altitude, entered earths atmosphere and burned out.But many satellites were recovered lke Zond which went around moon.
Voyager 2 is about 90 A U from earth at the limit where the solar wind just ends.
Captain of Science says
Yes, Sputnik 1 fell back down to Earth and burned up in the atmosphere after 57 days in orbit. Voyager 2 is in the heliosheath, which is right on the edge of the defined boundary of the Solar System, where the outward pressure of the "solar wind" is finally equalized by the inward pressure of interstellar gas, making it roughly 8.550 billion miles from Earth. It will never come back again by itself, it is bound for interstellar space, where its plutonium power supply (yes, a plutonium power pack) will keep it going for a very long time, but it will eventually just die and become completely useless space debris that will, for some odd reason then become self-aware and return to Earth as a super-massive spaceship that destroys spacecraft and eventually threatens Earth itself looking for its Creator in the original Star Trek movie.