[FPSPACE] The Mix Tape of the Gods

[LARRY KLAES]

Op-Ed Contributor

The Mix Tape of the Gods

By TIMOTHY FERRIS

Published: September 5, 2007

San Francisco

Podcast: Timothy Ferris Discusses the Voyager (mp3)

THIRTY years ago today, the Voyager 1 space probe — a one-ton robotic craft 
whose long antennas make it look rather like a spider the size of a school 
bus — was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on a mission to reconnoiter 
Jupiter and Saturn. To succeed, Voyager would have to survive five years in 
the vacuum of space, where it would encounter cosmic rays, solar flares, the 
hurtling rocks and sand of the asteroid belt, and Jupiter’s intense 
radiation bands.

The probe did all that, transmitting back reams of scientific data and 
memorable color photos: of the sputtering red and yellow volcanoes of 
Jupiter’s moon Io; of the shimmering blue ice that shrouds Io’s fellow 
satellite Europa, beneath which a liquid ocean is suspected to dwell; of 
Saturn’s myriad rings and the murky mysteries of its orange satellite, 
Titan, whose hazy atmosphere is thought to approximate that of the early 
Earth.

Having accomplished its mission, Voyager 1 might have quietly retired. 
Instead it remains active to this day, faithfully calling home from nearly 
10 billion miles away — so great a distance that its radio signals, 
traveling at the speed of light, take more than 14 hours to reach Earth. 
>From Voyager’s perch, the Sun is just another star, south of Rigel in the 
constellation Orion, and the Sun’s planets have faded to invisibility.

Like its twin, Voyager 2 — which dallied behind to examine the outer planets 
Uranus and Neptune and is departing the solar system on another trajectory — 
Voyager 1 is approaching the edge of the solar system. That limit is defined 
by a teardrop-shaped bubble called the heliosphere, where the solar wind 
(particles blown off the Sun’s outer atmosphere) comes to a halt.

If all continues to go well, Voyager should pierce the heliosphere’s outer 
skin by around 2015. It will then depart into the void of interstellar 
space, where it is destined to wander among the stars forever.

Mindful of this mind-boggling fact, the astronomers Carl Sagan and Frank 
Drake persuaded NASA to attach a gold-plated phonograph record to each of 
the Voyager spacecraft.

Containing photographs, natural sounds of Earth and 90 minutes of music from 
all over our world, the record was intended to preserve something of human 
culture beyond what an intelligent extraterrestrial, encountering the craft 
at some far-distant time and place, might infer from the spacecraft itself.

The information etched into the grooves of the Voyager record is expected to 
last at least one billion years. That’s a long time: A billion years ago, 
life on Earth was first venturing forth from the seas.

Full article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/opinion/05ferris.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin