Carl Sagan | The Conservation Report

Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are about to pierce the heleosphere, which protects our solar system from cosmic radiation, and enter interstellar space. The probes have already collected a wealth of data about our solar system, and they’re now collecting data about the edge of our solar system and soon, they’ll collect data about what lies beyond our solar system.

In addition to collecting information about our solar system and what lies beyond, each probe also contains a special record that contains information about our planet and humanity. Via NASA:

Each probe is famously equipped with a Golden Record, literally, a gold-coated copper phonograph record. It contains 118 photographs of Earth; 90 minutes of the world’s greatest music; an audio essay entitled Sounds of Earth (featuring everything from burbling mud pots to barking dogs to a roaring Saturn 5 liftoff); greetings in 55 human languages and one whale language; the brain waves of a young woman in love; and salutations from the Secretary General of the United Nations. A team led by Carl Sagan assembled the record as a message to possible extraterrestrial civilizations that might encounter the spacecraft.

“A billion years from now, when everything on Earth we’ve ever made has crumbled into dust, when the continents have changed beyond recognition and our species is unimaginably altered or extinct, the Voyager record will speak for us,” wrote Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan in an introduction to a CD version of the record.

The quote, “We live on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam,” was inspired by a “photograph of planet Earth taken in 1990 by Voyager 1 from a record distance, showing it against the vastness of space.” Compared to our sun, our Earth might appear insignificant suspended in the sun’s radiating light, but even our sun is diminutive compared to other massive stars in the inconceivable vastness of our universe (see below). When I look at the Earth suspended in the sunbeam, I’m reminded why it’s important to preserve the biodiversity of our planet. Considering the hardiness of some microscopic life here on Earth, maybe life is somewhat common in our universe. However, the conditions to produce complex life—and especially cognizant, intelligent, or sentient life—might be very rare, since organic life is at the mercy of the workings of the cosmos (organic life is fragile). Consequently, environmentalism is an important idea in the preservation of life, which is a rare and remarkable phenomenon surrounded by an equally remarkable universe. Images via BonkBonk and NASA:

Here is Carl Sagan’s quote captured as wallpaper for your computer:

Via Gizmodo and the Hayden Planetarium: The video below illustrates just how small the Earth is within our vast universe:

Even our sun is itsy-bitsy compared to some massive stars that also shine much brighter in our universe:

Image via Naurunappula
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