Gibbons: Voyager still carries our hopes of finding that we're not alone
Journey of Voyager 1 through space has been marked by milestones in scientific exploration and learning
Updated 4:57 pm, Saturday, October 26, 2013
On Sept. 5, 1977, humanity stood at the shoreline of the ancient cosmic ocean that had been beckoning for generations, and with a massive, rocket-propelled heave, we hurled a kind of message in a bottle out into the vast sea of space. That "bottle" was Voyager 1.
Within its spindly metal framework was a gold-plated audio-visual disc filled with photos, music and messages from the people of Earth. Although its primary mission was to conduct a scientific reconnaissance of Jupiter and Saturn, scientists also knew there was a good chance that the probe would eventually leave our solar system someday and enter the great void of interstellar space.
Consequently, a team of scientists and engineers, led by Carl Sagan, viewed Voyager as a unique opportunity for humanity to send a greeting card into space - a cosmic message in a bottle.
And, like children on a beach, we have patiently watched our bottle slowly drift farther and farther from shore. Last month, we learned that it finally has dipped below the horizon, and we can do nothing more now than simply hope that, someday, our bottle may be found.
Voyager 1 is one of the most successful and remarkable space probes ever launched. It conducted the first detailed studies of Jupiter and Saturn, and its discoveries electrified planetary scientists. As Voyager 1 encountered the Jovian moon Io, it discovered the first active volcano outside of the Earth. It also revealed the ice-covered surface of Jupiter's enigmatic moon Europa, as well as the complex structure of Saturn's rings.
Scientists spent years poring over the trove of data transmitted back to Earth by the probe. And although they initially thought that Voyager would cease providing any valuable scientific information after its Saturn encounter in 1980, the rugged probe soldiered on.
Ten years later, Voyager took its final photo - the first "family portrait" ever of the solar system - from a record distance of 6 billion kilometers. The image became famous because the Earth appeared as nothing more than a small "pale blue dot," inspiring the title of the seminal book by Sagan.
In 1998, Voyager passed another milestone as it surpassed the distance traveled by Pioneer 10, and last month, NASA confirmed that the intrepid probe has become the first man-made object to enter interstellar space.
Voyager 1 is now heading in the general direction of the star Gliese 445 and will pass within 1.6 light years of it in about 40,000 years.
The likelihood that another space-faring civilization will someday retrieve Voyager 1 is truly remote. In that extremely unlikely event, it will probably be millions of years from now, when humanity is long gone.
But if Voyager 1 is ever found, we can only hope that those who come upon it will somehow decipher the messages we've placed within our bottle. Perhaps they will conclude that on a blue planet orbiting a very ordinary star, there once lived a society of sentient beings whose curiosity and innate desire to explore eventually led them to wade into the mysterious cosmic ocean that surrounded their home.
Perhaps they will also decipher that although the beings from the blue planet recognized that they were a deeply flawed species, one that was prone to violence and a dangerous embrace of superstition, they were also determined to overcome their demons by trying to understand the cosmos and their place within it.
What the retrievers of Voyager 1 could never comprehend is that one of humanity's primary motivations in sending this message in a bottle was something that couldn't be placed on a gold-plated disc or etched into the metal chassis of our robot emissary. It is a certain longing that has been troubling us for decades, and it chills our souls whenever we contemplate the size of the universe and the incredible number of stars and planets contained within it.
For each time we have shouted out into the deep, infinite expanse of space and listened for a reply, the only response we've received has been a disturbing silence. The bottle couldn't possibly convey that we have always felt so very alone and desperately hoped that we were not.
Gibbons is a freelance writer and a Philadelphia-based member of The Planetary Society.