[gpm]

I haven't seen the article, but I don't buy it, there's no likely events that will harm Voyager 1 and 2 in that time period, for instance. They could get really unluckly and hit a star/planet, but it's not at all likely. Along a similar vein many of the satellites that we put in graveyard orbits around earth at the end of their useful life will also plausibly last that long, though there is a lot more debris for them to collide with.

We've also certainly... redistributed... many metals and other things around earth. Perhaps "large concentration of iron over what use to be new york" doesn't count, but arguably it should.

[mlyle]

> I haven't seen the article, but I don't buy it, there's no likely events that will harm Voyager 1 and 2 in that time period, for instance.

Sure, but nothing will encounter or observe them ever again.

Things we put into heliocentric orbits are likely to be forever, too.

> Along a similar vein many of the satellites that we put in graveyard orbits around earth at the end of their useful life will also plausibly last that long, though there is a lot more debris for them to collide with.

While they won't decay from drag in a few million years, tidal forces and photon pressure become significant over time.

[bdeshi]

> Sure, but nothing will encounter or observe them ever again.

like trees falling silently in desolate forests?

[pmontra]

More than that. There are plenty of atoms and photons and other particles observing those trees, much less for Voyagers.