What stops a projectile from endlessly flying forward? Excluding gravity since it's an obvious one. Wind resistance is something that would eventually stop the projectile, anything else? Other that object in it's path. (I'm sorry for sounding stupid, but in school we didn't do much physics stuff in science, and past few years I didn't get science due to me being in a special class, so I didn't study that much about science over the years)
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2 Answers
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If there is nothing but time, space, and the projectile, it would not stop. Newton's first law says so. On earth, atmospheric drag and anything in the way slows it down. In space, we of course have gravity along with floating particles few and far between.
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1$\begingroup$ An obvious example of this is the Voyager probes, which are arguably projectiles that we sent to the furthest limits of the solar system... and they just kept going. $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 13, 2017 at 19:50
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$\begingroup$ Correct me of I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that on those probes, there is a small nuclear generator which spews out particles. No one accounted for this when planning its route so is is a few hundred kilometers off course. $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 13, 2017 at 20:08
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Given enough time and distance, in a flight to the nearest galaxy, it would eventually wear away. At high speed, even though the density of matter is very, very low, the high speed of the probe would cause erosion, although again it's a long term process.
On Earth, it would be a much faster rate of erosion, as the density of abrading material is much higher.