Latest / Talking Science / Voyager – Humanity’s Farthest Messengers
Transcript
- 0:00So I want you to just think for a second about
- 0:02the electronic key fob that you probably have
- 0:04sitting in your pocket, or maybe it's like on
- 0:06your kitchen counter right now. Oh yeah, the
- 0:08little plastic thing for your car. Right, exactly.
- 0:10You know that little piece of plastic that you
- 0:11just press to unlock your car doors? And it is
- 0:14something you likely use every single day, completely
- 0:16without a second thought. But I want you to hold
- 0:18that object in your mind for a minute, because...
- 0:21humanity's farthest reaching and most extraordinary
- 0:25space mission was launched with literally less
- 0:28computing power than that little piece of plastic.
- 0:30It really is wild. It frames the reality of 1970s
- 0:36engineering in a way that sounds almost completely
- 0:38impossible to us today. Because when we think
- 0:41of interstellar exploration now, we immediately
- 0:44imagine supercomputers and artificial intelligence.
- 0:50technology that predates the home personal computer.
- 0:53Exactly. So welcome to today's deep dive. Today,
- 0:56we are tracing how two machines, Voyager 1 and
- 0:59Voyager 2, managed to pull off what is basically
- 1:02the ultimate cosmic road trip using that exact
- 1:05primitive tech. We've got this beautifully written
- 1:08essay detailing the mission. And our goal today
- 1:10is to really unpack the brilliant engineering,
- 1:14the... Undeniable cosmic luck and the poetic
- 1:18legacy of two small robotic spacecraft that are
- 1:21still somehow calling home from the absolute
- 1:24dark. It's such a great source text, too. It
- 1:26really is. So I invite you, the listener, to
- 1:29just settle in, set a warm, you know, unhurried
- 1:31pace for yourself today. We need to travel all
- 1:34the way back to 1977. Ah, the 70s. Right. An
- 1:37era of bell bottoms and eight track tapes. Mobile
- 1:40phones do not exist at this point. And from that
- 1:43baseline, we are going to follow the Voyagers
- 1:45out into the void. Yeah. And establishing that
- 1:471977 context right away, I think, really highlights
- 1:51the central engineering problem of this entire
- 1:53endeavor. How so? We are talking about spacecraft
- 1:55with incredibly limited computing brains. Sure.
- 1:59But they also had these severe constraints on
- 2:02physical power and fuel. Right. I mean, they're
- 2:04tiny. Exactly. The engineers couldn't just, you
- 2:07know, strap a massive rocket engine to these
- 2:09probes and hit the gas for decades. So the logical
- 2:12problem immediately becomes, how do you get a
- 2:15spacecraft with a tiny little fuel tank to cross
- 2:17the entirety of our solar system? So if I'm understanding
- 2:20the physics of this correctly from the essay,
- 2:22they actually weren't relying on their own engines
- 2:24to travel billions of miles. The source mentions
- 2:27this really rare opportunity called the Grand
- 2:30Tour. And that relied on like a specific alignment
- 2:33of the outer planets. That's the crux of the
- 2:35whole thing. Yeah. In the late 1970s and early
- 2:381980s, the four giant outer planets. So that's
- 2:41Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. They all happen
- 2:44to line up on the exact same side of the solar
- 2:46system. Which is pretty rare, right? Oh, incredibly
- 2:49rare. You have to remember that these planets
- 2:51are all moving at vastly different speeds in
- 2:53these massive sprawling orbits. They do not sync
- 2:56up often. This specific geometric configuration
- 2:59where they're basically in a row. only occurs
- 3:02about once every 176 years. Wait, 176 years?
- 3:06Meaning, like, if NASA missed this window in
- 3:09the late 70s, there is literally no second chance
- 3:13for anyone alive at the time. None. You'd just
- 3:15have to wait the better part of two centuries
- 3:17for the planets to align like that again. Precisely.
- 3:20So, NASA astronomers realized that because these
- 3:23giants were lined up, a single spacecraft could,
- 3:26theoretically, visit all four in one continuous
- 3:29journey. But to actually make that leap from
- 3:32one planet to the next without just running out
- 3:34of fuel, they had to execute this maneuver called
- 3:37a gravity assist or slingshot. OK, here is where
- 3:40I want to push back just a little on the terminology
- 3:42in the essay, because it describes the spacecraft
- 3:44as stealing speed, quote, entirely for free.
- 3:47No fuel spent. End quote. Yes. And my understanding
- 3:51of thermodynamics is that you cannot get something
- 3:53from nothing. If the spacecraft is suddenly accelerating
- 3:56toward the outer solar system, that energy has
- 3:58to come from somewhere. Right. Is it literally
- 4:00stealing Jupiter's orbital momentum? Like, does
- 4:02a giant planet actually slow down? That is a
- 4:05really highly perceptive question, actually.
- 4:07And you are in. right to challenge that idea
- 4:10of free energy. Okay, good. Because it isn't
- 4:12magic. You know, it's a strict mechanical exchange.
- 4:14When the tiny spacecraft approaches Jupiter,
- 4:17it falls into the planet's immense gravitational
- 4:19well. It whips around the back of the moving
- 4:22planet and then basically shoots back out. Right.
- 4:25And by aiming it at a very specific trajectory,
- 4:28the engineers ensure that the spacecraft leeches
- 4:31a microscopic fraction of Jupiter's own momentum
- 4:35as the planet orbits the sun. So the energy is
- 4:38literally coming from Jupiter's movement through
- 4:40space. Correct. And because it is an equal exchange
- 4:42of momentum, Jupiter actually does slow down.
- 4:45Wait, really? Yes. But the scale of that exchange
- 4:48must be just incredibly disproportionate. Oh,
- 4:51vastly disproportionate. Jupiter is so unimaginably
- 4:54massive that giving up that energy slows its
- 4:57orbit by an utterly immeasurable amount. We're
- 5:00talking fractions of a millimeter over billions
- 5:02of years. You could never, ever detect the change.
- 5:05But transferring that exact same amount of kinetic
- 5:08energy into a tiny 2 ,000 -pound spacecraft,
- 5:11that results in a colossal speed boost. No fuel
- 5:15is burned. by the probe to gain that acceleration,
- 5:18it just leverages the mass of the solar system
- 5:20against itself. That is wild. The source uses
- 5:24this really beautiful analogy of a stone skipping
- 5:27across a pond. Voyager 1 used Jupiter's gravity
- 5:31to accelerate towards Saturn. And then Voyager
- 5:332 took it even further, using Saturn to slingshot
- 5:36to Uranus and then Uranus to slingshot to Neptune.
- 5:39Right. They were just gathering velocity from
- 5:41each giant they passed like they were skipping
- 5:43across the cosmic pond. Exactly. And armed with
- 5:46that stolen momentum, they weren't just racing
- 5:48the clock. You know, their cameras and sensors
- 5:49were wide open. And what they were hurtling toward
- 5:52completely shattered our existing understanding
- 5:54of the solar system. I mean, we really have to
- 5:55consider what humanity actually knew about. these
- 5:57places before 1979. Yeah, let's talk about that,
- 6:00because if you point a high -powered telescope
- 6:02at the sky in the mid -70s, you are essentially
- 6:05just looking at faint, blurry smudges, right?
- 6:08Exactly. Faint smudges. We knew they were massive
- 6:11planets, of course, but they lacked any kind
- 6:13of sharp definition. The Voyagers were about
- 6:15to provide our very first close -up portraits
- 6:18of these distant worlds, and they found systems
- 6:20that were far more dynamic and honestly more
- 6:23violent than anyone predicted. The sheer variety
- 6:25is just staggering. The essay details how they
- 6:29looked at Jupiter and revealed that its great
- 6:30red spot isn't just like a flat surface feature.
- 6:34No, not at all. It's a colossal high pressure
- 6:36anticyclonic storm that is actually larger than
- 6:39Earth itself. Yep. And then they showed us the
- 6:42intricate, almost record groove complexity of
- 6:45Saturn's rings. They looked at Saturn's largest
- 6:48moon, Titan, and found it wrapped in this thick,
- 6:51hazy, orange atmosphere of nitrogen and methane.
- 6:55Right. They proved that these weren't just dead,
- 6:56frozen spheres of gas and ice floating out there.
- 6:59They were active, evolving systems. But the detail
- 7:02that really made me pause was their discovery
- 7:04on Jupiter's moon, Io. The text points out that
- 7:06Voyager found Io to be completely covered in
- 7:09active volcanoes. Oh, that was huge. It's amazing.
- 7:12This was the first time active volcanism had
- 7:14ever been seen anywhere beyond Earth. But what
- 7:17I don't fully grasp is the actual mechanism.
- 7:20Io is a tiny moon sitting in the absolute freezing
- 7:24depths of space, hundreds of millions of miles
- 7:27away from the warmth of the sun. Why on Earth
- 7:30is it hot enough inside to have erupting volcanoes?
- 7:33Well, that is the crucial aha moment of the Jupiter
- 7:35encounter. It all comes down to a phenomenon
- 7:38called tidal heating. Tidal heating, so like
- 7:41ocean tides on Earth. Similar principle, yeah,
- 7:43but applied to solid rock instead of water. So
- 7:46Io is caught in this massive gravitational tug
- 7:48of war. On one side, you have the immense crushing
- 7:51gravity of Jupiter just pulling on it. And then
- 7:55on the other side, you have the gravity of Jupiter's
- 7:57other large moons, specifically Europa and Ganymede,
- 7:59pulling it in the exact opposite direction. So
- 8:02as Io orbits, it is literally being squeezed,
- 8:05stretched, and distorted. by these competing
- 8:07gravitational forces. Wait, so the moon is physically
- 8:09bulging out of shape? Yes. The solid ground of
- 8:12Io bulges up and down by over 300 feet as it
- 8:15orbits. 300 feet of solid rock moving. That's
- 8:18insane. It is. Now, think about if you take a
- 8:21metal wire, like a paper clip, and you bend it
- 8:24back and forth rapidly in your hands. What happens
- 8:27to the metal at the bend? Oh, it gets hot, like
- 8:29really hot. Right. That is internal friction.
- 8:32So the immense friction from all that solid rock
- 8:35grinding and stretching inside Io generates intense
- 8:38heat. Enough heat to completely melt the interior
- 8:42of the moon, forcing magma out to the surface.
- 8:45Voyager didn't just find volcanoes. It discovered
- 8:48a brand new geological mechanism for heating
- 8:51a world. Oh, wow. That makes so much more sense
- 8:54now. And while Voyager 1's path took it upward
- 8:57and kind of out of the planetary plane after
- 8:58Saturn, Voyager 2 capitalized on that rare alignment
- 9:02to push onto Uranus and Neptune. Yeah, get going.
- 9:05And almost 50 years later, Voyager 2 is still
- 9:07the only spacecraft humanity has ever sent to
- 9:10visit those two planets. And its findings there
- 9:11were equally paradigm shifting, honestly. Yeah.
- 9:14At Neptune, which is a planet so far from the
- 9:16sun it receives barely any solar energy at all,
- 9:18Voyager 2 recorded supersonic winds tearing through
- 9:21the atmosphere. atmosphere at over 1 ,000 miles
- 9:23per hour. 1 ,000 miles per hour. Yep. And on
- 9:26Neptune's moon, Triton, it found active geysers
- 9:30erupting into space. Okay, wait. Geysers on Triton.
- 9:33If it's even farther out than Io and much, much
- 9:36colder, what is actually erupting? Because it
- 9:39can't be magma, right? Right. It isn't magma.
- 9:40It's a process called cryovolcanism, basically.
- 9:42Cold volcanoes. Cold volcanoes. Yeah. The surface
- 9:45of Triton is essentially just deep frozen nitrogen.
- 9:48And the Voyager data suggests that the faint
- 9:51sunlight penetrates the surface ice, heating
- 9:53up a dark layer of material underneath. This
- 9:56turns the frozen nitrogen into a high -pressure
- 9:59gas that eventually ruptures the ice crust. And
- 10:02it shoots plumes of dark dust and nitrogen gas
- 10:04miles into space. That is phenomenal. So you
- 10:07have two small probes carrying these ancient
- 10:09computers. And during just a handful of brief
- 10:12flybys, they completely rewrote the science textbooks.
- 10:15They really did. They transformed four distant,
- 10:18blurry smudges into real, complicated worlds
- 10:21driven by tidal heating, supersonic winds, and
- 10:24cold volcanoes. But, you know, the planetary
- 10:25flybys were just the primary objective. They
- 10:27didn't hit a wall after Neptune. Physics dictates
- 10:30that an object in motion stays in motion. Right.
- 10:32Right. So without atmospheric friction to slow
- 10:35them down, their projectories carried them onward.
- 10:37They just kept coasting. And this takes us from
- 10:41the charted solar system into a completely different
- 10:43environment. Yeah, the text refers to this as
- 10:45the second stranger chapter of their journey,
- 10:48leaving the solar system entirely. But to really
- 10:51grasp what that means, we need to clarify what
- 10:53the boundary of the solar system actually is.
- 10:56Because it's not just a line on a map past Pluto.
- 10:59No, it is a physical, measurable boundary created
- 11:02by our sun. Because we naturally think of space
- 11:05as this perfect empty vacuum, right? But the
- 11:09space inside our solar system is actually filled
- 11:11with a constant outward stream of charged particles
- 11:14and magnetic fields blown out by the sun. Okay.
- 11:16This stream is called the solar wind. So the
- 11:19sun is continuously exhaling this plasma wind
- 11:21in all directions. Constantly exhaling. And the
- 11:24solar wind is pushing outward. At over a million
- 11:27miles an hour, it inflates a vast protective
- 11:30bubble around all the planets. That bubble is
- 11:33called the heliosphere. The heliosphere, got
- 11:35it. And for decades after they passed the outer
- 11:37planets, the Voyagers were still sailing through
- 11:40this bubble, firmly within the sun's magnetic
- 11:43sphere of influence. But eventually, that solar
- 11:47wind starts to lose its strength as it pushes
- 11:49against the interstellar medium. And the interstellar
- 11:52medium is? Oh, that's just the gas and dust that
- 11:54exists in the open space between the stars. Okay,
- 11:57so the essay uses a really great porch light
- 11:59analogy here that I want to adapt for you, the
- 12:02listener, based on what you just explained about
- 12:04the physics. Imagine you are inside a warm, brightly
- 12:08lit house on a freezing winter night. I love
- 12:11this analogy. It's so good. The heliosphere is
- 12:13like the glow of your porch light. You walk out
- 12:16the front door, across the yard, and you are
- 12:18still bathed in the glow of the house. That's
- 12:20where the planets are. But as you keep walking
- 12:23out toward the dark woods, the light begins to
- 12:25fade. Right, and that fading light is a perfect
- 12:28representation of a region called the termination
- 12:30shock. That's where the solar wind abruptly slows
- 12:33down as it encounters the heavy pressure of interstellar
- 12:37space. Right. So eventually you step past the
- 12:39very edge of the porch light's reach. You hit
- 12:41a definitive border where the wind from the dark
- 12:44woods finally overpowers the warmth of your house.
- 12:46And suddenly you're just out in the freezing,
- 12:49totally dark wilderness. And that definitive
- 12:52border is called the heliopause. It is the exact
- 12:56boundary where the outward pressure of the solar
- 12:58wind is perfectly balanced by the inward pressure
- 13:00of the interstellar medium. And after decades
- 13:03of traveling, Voyager 1 actually reached that
- 13:06invisible border. In 2012, it pierced the heliopause
- 13:10and became the very first human -made object
- 13:13to cross into interstellar space. Into the space
- 13:15between the stars. Yes, and Voyager 2 followed,
- 13:18making its own crossing into the interstellar
- 13:20medium a few years later in 2018. It is a profound
- 13:24milestone. A machine built by human hands had
- 13:27finally left the sun's protective bubble and
- 13:29entered the wider ocean of the Milky Way galaxy.
- 13:31See, what really bends my mind about this milestone
- 13:33isn't just the physics, it's the sheer scale
- 13:35of the distance we are talking about here. The
- 13:38scale is almost impossible to intuit, honestly.
- 13:40We have to measure these distances not in miles,
- 13:42but in light hours. And, you know, light travels
- 13:45at 186 ,000 miles per second. Which is fast.
- 13:48Very fast. It is the absolute speed limit of
- 13:51the universe. And even at that speed, the radio
- 13:54signals that these spacecraft are sending back
- 13:55right now take an agonizingly long time to reach
- 13:59our antennas here on Earth. The essay notes that
- 14:02for Voyager 1, A single ping takes over 22 hours
- 14:06to arrive. Just think about that for a second.
- 14:10Over 22 hours traveling at the speed of light.
- 14:12It's crazy. And yet from that unimaginable abyss,
- 14:15using a 1970s radio transmitter that literally
- 14:18operates on less power than a refrigerator light
- 14:20bulb, they are still successfully beaming back
- 14:23data. They are literally telling us what the
- 14:25plasma environment of the interstellar ocean
- 14:26feels like today. Now, knowing that these spacecraft
- 14:29were heading into an infinite, timeless void
- 14:31raises an entirely different kind of question
- 14:33for the creators. Because in the vacuum of interstellar
- 14:36space, there is no wind, no rain, no oxygen to
- 14:40rust the metal. Nothing to break them down. Right.
- 14:42So the engineers realized that these probes were
- 14:46going to physically outlast the mountains on
- 14:48Earth. They will very likely outlast human civilization
- 14:51itself. So they faced this profound philosophical
- 14:54dilemma. If you are sending a machine into eternity,
- 14:58what you pack. Exactly. If there is even a microscopic
- 15:01non -zero chance that in some distant epoch,
- 15:04millions of years from now, another intelligence
- 15:07might intercept this craft. Yeah. What is the
- 15:09message you want to leave them about who we were?
- 15:12So the committee tasked with answering that massive
- 15:14question was led by the astronomer Carl Sagan.
- 15:16And their solution was a cultural payload known
- 15:19as the Golden Record. It's so iconic. It is.
- 15:22It is a physical 12 -inch gold -plated copper
- 15:25phonograph record designed to survive for a billion
- 15:28years in space. And it is just bolted right to
- 15:30the side of both spacecraft. It was really intended
- 15:33as a portrait of humanity. The cover of the record
- 15:36features these etched instructions on how to
- 15:37physically build a stylus to play it, along with
- 15:40a map using glass. acting pulsars to show exactly
- 15:42where our sun is located in the Milky Way. But
- 15:45the contents of the record itself are what truly
- 15:47resonate. Yeah, they encoded 115 images of life
- 15:51on Earth. They included spoken readings in 55
- 15:54different human languages. And they dedicated
- 15:57a vast amount of space to music. I mean, everything
- 16:00from classical pieces by Bach and Beethoven to
- 16:03Navajo chants and even rock and roll with Chuck
- 16:06Berry. But beyond the music and the languages,
- 16:08they included a curated selection of audio designed
- 16:10to represent the planet itself. And this is the
- 16:13part that I find so moving, honestly. You have
- 16:15this incredibly cold, highly engineered feat
- 16:17of astrophysics, right? Titanium, nuclear generators
- 16:21and gravity assists. Yeah. And bolted to the
- 16:24side of it is the audio of rain, wind and thunder.
- 16:26There is birdsong and the haunting clicks of
- 16:28a... whale. And then there are these remarkably
- 16:30intimate human sounds. The sound of mother's
- 16:33kiss, the sound of a human heartbeat. It creates
- 16:36such a poignant contrast. The spacecraft represents
- 16:39our mathematical and technical prowess, sure,
- 16:41but the record represents our emotional and biological
- 16:43reality. It is literally a message in a bottle
- 16:47cast into a sea of stars. And the engineers did
- 16:50this knowing full well that the vast emptiness
- 16:53of space means it will almost certainly never
- 16:55be found. It wasn't just a science experiment.
- 16:58It was a deeply hopeful expression of our existence.
- 17:02Absolutely. You just have to wonder, for anyone
- 17:04listening to this deep dive right now, if you
- 17:07were on Sagan's committee, what one sound would
- 17:11you want to represent us to the universe? Boy,
- 17:13that's a tough one. It really forces you to distill
- 17:16humanity down to its absolute essence. It does.
- 17:19Now, before the Voyagers completely lost sight
- 17:22of us in the darkness, they executed one final
- 17:24maneuver that captures that exact same philosophical
- 17:27weight. We've explored the message they carry
- 17:30out to the universe, but we really have to discuss
- 17:32the final visual message they sent back to us.
- 17:35Yes. This occurred in 1990. Voyager 1 had been
- 17:38flying for 13 years and was roughly 6 billion
- 17:41kilometers away, sailing far, far beyond the
- 17:45orbit of Neptune. And Carl Sagan, who spearheaded
- 17:47the golden record, goes back to NASA and lobbies
- 17:49for them to turn Voyager 1's camera around. Which
- 17:52was a big deal at the time. Huge deal. He asked
- 17:54them to point it back toward the inner solar
- 17:56system and take one last series of photographs,
- 17:59including a shot of Earth. Because from 6 billion
- 18:02kilometers away, Earth doesn't look like a giant
- 18:05blue marble anymore. No, not at all. In the resulting
- 18:08image, which is famously known as the pale blue
- 18:10dot, Earth barely registers. The essay describes
- 18:14the photograph so vividly. You see this vast,
- 18:17overwhelming ocean of... black space intersected
- 18:20by a scattered ray of sunlight that just happens
- 18:22to be hitting the camera lens and suspended right
- 18:25in the middle of that sunbeam is a single tiny
- 18:28point of light. It is less than a single pixel
- 18:31in size. That pale blue dot is us. It's incredibly
- 18:34humbling. Sagan's reflection on that specific
- 18:37pixel of light remains, I think, one of the most
- 18:40powerful pieces of scientific prose ever written.
- 18:42Definitely. He observed that on that tiny speck
- 18:44is everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone
- 18:46you ever heard of, every creature. creator and
- 18:48destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant,
- 18:51every couple in love. The entirety of human history,
- 18:53all of our joy and suffering, happened right
- 18:56there on a moat of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
- 18:58Just a single pixel. Right. And he argued that
- 19:01seeing our world reduced to that single pixel
- 19:04underscores our immense responsibility to deal
- 19:07more kindly with one another and to preserve
- 19:09and cherish the only home we've ever known. The
- 19:11mission provided us with unparalleled data about
- 19:14gas giants and the interstellar medium. Arguably,
- 19:18its greatest contribution was that vital shift
- 19:21in perspective. But, you know, bringing our focus
- 19:24back to the reality of the present day, this
- 19:26incredible journey is nearing its functional
- 19:29end. Right. The source notes that the Voyagers
- 19:31are finally running out of power. Because they
- 19:33are way too far from the sun for solar panels
- 19:35to work, how are they actually powered right
- 19:37now? So they are powered by radioisotope thermoelectric
- 19:41generators, or RTGs. RTGs, okay. Essentially,
- 19:43they run on the heat generated by decaying spheres
- 19:46of plutonium. But after nearly 50 years in space,
- 19:49that plutonium has decayed significantly. The
- 19:51generators are producing less and less electrical
- 19:53power each year. So the engineers at NASA are
- 19:56basically having to play this delicate game of
- 19:58survival. Exactly. To keep the core communication
- 20:01systems and vital sensors alive, they are systematically
- 20:05shutting down everything else. They turned off
- 20:08the cameras long ago, and now they are shutting
- 20:11down the onboard heaters, letting the remaining
- 20:13scientific instruments literally freeze in the
- 20:16cold of space, all just to save a few watts of
- 20:18power. But the reality is just a math problem
- 20:21at this point. Within the next few years, the
- 20:23RTGs simply won't generate enough wattage to
- 20:26power the transmitters. The spacecraft will eventually
- 20:29fall completely silent. No more pings from the
- 20:32dark. Right. They will lose their voice, but
- 20:34they will not lose their momentum. Physics guarantees
- 20:36that. Without friction to slow them down, they
- 20:39will continue to coast outward at over 35 ,000
- 20:42miles per hour. Silent, gold -plated, and completely
- 20:45intact, they will just drift through the Milky
- 20:46Way for millions upon millions of years. Long
- 20:49after the last of us is gone, they will just
- 20:51be out there. A testament to curious, hopeful
- 20:53creatures who looked up, wondered what was in
- 20:55the dark, and just built a machine to find out.
- 20:57It is the ultimate enduring legacy of human curiosity.
- 21:01You know, it brings my mind back to where we
- 21:03started today. We opened by discussing the computing
- 21:06power of your car key fob. Right. We recognize
- 21:09how incredibly fast our technology has advanced
- 21:12since 1977. And it leaves me with one final thought,
- 21:16something that's not explicitly in the essay,
- 21:18but something to really ponder for a second.
- 21:21We instinctively assume that the Golden Record
- 21:23is meant for extraterrestrials, right? We assume
- 21:26it's for some alien intelligence to find. But
- 21:29what if the Voyagers are never intercepted by
- 21:31aliens at all? Well, given the vast emptiness
- 21:33of space, that is statistically the most likely
- 21:36outcome. Right, but think about the trajectory
- 21:38of human innovation. What if humanity actually
- 21:41survives its adolescence? What if over the next
- 21:44thousands or millions of years we continue to
- 21:47evolve and we eventually crack the physics of
- 21:49faster -than -light travel? Oh, I see where you're
- 21:51going with this. The universe is unimaginably
- 21:53vast, and Voyagers... incredibly small and silent,
- 21:57the first people to eventually stumble upon this
- 21:59ultimate message in a bottle drifting out in
- 22:02the dark might just be our very own distant descendants.
- 22:07They could be traveling out into the stars only
- 22:09to unexpectedly cross paths with our civilization's
- 22:12own childhood footprints. Exactly. Imagine humanity
- 22:16millions of years in the future, finding a golden
- 22:19record bolted to a machine with less computing
- 22:21power than a piece of plastic and realizing this
- 22:25is the fragile, ambitious beginning of where
- 22:27we started. That's a wonderfully grounding thought
- 22:29to leave off on. Thanks for joining us for this
- 22:32deep dive. Keep looking up and we'll catch you
- 22:33next time.