How many cosmic dust particles hit Voyager in a million years?
OK folks, inspired by a recent question here, can anyone estimate how many cosmic dust particles will hit a Voyager spacecraft in a million years.
My estimate is 200 billion, which is about 60,000 per square millimetre on the leading surface. Quite a sandblasting!
Based on the wiki article on cosmic dust, voyager moving at about 16,000 kmph and a diameter of a metre or so.
Any advances on that figure?
This question just started out as a bit of fun to quantify an answer to a question by another poster here. But the numbers are actually quite alarming. I find it extraordinary that there is no attention drawn to this issue in an age where people are seriously suggesting "microprobes" coursing through interstellar space.