A satellite travelling the darkness of deep space

The Quadra Project: Sounds of the Earth

On August 20, 1977, Voyager 2 was launched from NASA’s facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida. And exactly 15 days later, on September 5, 1977, Voyager 1 was launched from the same facility. The timing was crucial because astronomical calculations had placed Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in a lineal alignment that would only occur once every 176 years. With this alignment, each planet could accelerate the two spacecrafts to their next destination, reducing the travel time from 30 years to 12 years.

Voyager 1 arrived at Jupiter on March 5, 1979, and Saturn on November 12, 1980, before leaving the plane of the solar system on a journey into outer space. On February 14, 1990, from a distance of 6 billion kilometres, it photographed Earth as a small, pale, blue dot in the enormity of black space.

Meanwhile, Voyager 2 surveyed Jupiter and Saturn. Then, on January 24, 1986, it flew past Uranus and went on to Neptune where, on August 25, 1989, it photographed that planet before also heading off into interstellar space. In 40,000 years, it is expected to reach the nearest star that might have an orbiting planet supporting what we understand to be life.

Placed in each of the Voyager spacecrafts is a gold disc with a record of the miscellaneous sounds and sights of planet Earth, just in case anyone or anything from outside our solar system should encounter one or both of the Voyagers. Accompanying the 115 selected images of life on Earth are the sounds of people from 55 languages, the oldest being Akkadian, which was spoken in Sumer about six thousand years ago, and the newest being Wu, a modern Chinese dialect. Also recorded are various kinds of music, and the sounds of birds, whales, hyenas, chimpanzees, frogs, crickets and elephants.

The accomplishments of the Voyagers represent much about the sophistication of our species as we journey through our history. We have come some distance since the first civilizations that slowly emerged after the end of the last Ice Age some 12,000 years ago. Civilizations, as we understand them, are only about 8,000 years old. Almost all of them have risen and then fallen, each flourishing with a confidence that eventually ended in collapse. Nonetheless, accomplishments were built upon failures until we reached the Scientific Revolution about 400 years ago, and the Industrial Revolution some 250 years ago. Since then, almost anything seems possible.

It’s this “anything” that is worrisome. Are we in control of the powers we are unleashing? Indeed, were civilizations ever able to control the powers that they unleashed? Historically, their influences were all rather minor compared to our present one. An assessment of the speed and impact of our modern age is cause for concern. The rate of change, the extent of our influence, the global effects of our technologies and the manipulative skill of our tinkering all mix with a soaring human population, insatiable demands on finite resources, devious forms of pollution, and the incessant dismantling of ecologies which suggest an uncertain future.

The incredible success of the two Voyager spacecrafts—over 40 years of tracking, manoeuvring and processing their information—is ironically juxtaposed with the tragic treatment of the planet from which they came. Since 1970, the same decade as the launch of the Voyagers, the populations of wild animals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish have declined by 69 percent. Measured by weight, 62 percent of the mammals presently alive on Earth are farmed animals, 34 percent are human beings, and a mere 4 percent are wild.

If, by chance, some alien intelligence should find one of the Voyagers as it approaches a distant planet some 40,000 years from now, who knows what will be left of the life on Earth that is represented on the golden disk? We, who live here, can’t even make an intelligent guess of what will remain in 4,000 years, in 400 years—or even 40 years, for that matter. The changes we have wrought on Earth are so abrupt, so powerful, so dramatic and so pervasive that we simply don’t know what the future will be.

Some things we do know. Unless we find a nearly miraculous way of cleaning carbon dioxide from our atmosphere, its high level and the disruptions caused by its subsequent heating will be here for centuries. Rising temperatures will continue melting glaciers and ice sheets, resulting in multiple metres of uncontrollable sea-level rise. So-called “forever chemicals” and nuclear reactor wastes will also be here indefinitely, as will some plastics. The dual phenomena of ocean heating and acidification are threats we are barely considering in the plethora of our other escalating concerns. Meanwhile, the diversity of human languages and cultures are going extinct as fast as our planet’s species. Our present collective behaviour seems to be metastasizing into a manic hyperactivity with unknown consequences.

Voyagers 1 and 2 are amazing scientific and technological accomplishments, but they are also ironic symbols of hubris. What a grimly tragic ending to a remarkable story if these two spacecraft, on their long journey through the vast silence of endless space, became the only enduring evidence of the abundant life that once flourished on planet Earth.

Ray Grigg for Sierra Quadra

Top photo credit: Artist’s conception of Voyager 1 travelling through space – Photo courtesy NASA (Public Domain)