The Interstellar Age (37 page)

Selections from the
Voyager
Golden Record.
T
OP LEFT
: Golden Record Image 35: Father and child, showing a range of human forms and expressions. T
OP RIGHT
: Image 102: Rush hour in India, showing many aspects of human transportation. M
IDDLE LEFT
: Image 71: Stroboscopic photo of gymnast Cathy Rigby, showing the range of human motion over five seconds. M
IDDLE RIGHT
: Image 108: Stuck Sno-Cat from a 1958 Antarctic expedition, showing that we’re not perfect. B
OTTOM LEFT
: Image 74: Children examining a globe of Earth, with political boundaries. B
OTTOM RIGHT
: Image 114: Sunset on planet Earth.

Jupiter: Clouds and the Great Red Spot.
Two spectacular examples of modern reprocessed
Voyager
images of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot show the regional appearance of this three-Earth-sized storm system (
TOP
) and a close-up of just the storm itself (
BOTTOM
).

Europa, Close-up.
One of the highest-resolution views of Europa obtained during the
Voyager
flybys, this reprocessed version of
Voyager 2
’s closest-approach mosaic shows spectacular examples of the cracks, grooves, and low ridges that imply the existence of a large subsurface ocean underneath this moon’s relatively flat, icy crust.

Voyager 2
’s Departure from Saturn.
About three days after the closest approach behind Saturn and the major scare from the scan platform anomaly, control was regained of
Voyager 2
’s cameras, resulting in breathtaking, impossible-from-Earth photos like this from beneath the plane of the rings. Modern digital reprocessing of the data helps to bring out additional subtle details in color and structure.

Jumbled Miranda.
The highest-resolution images from
Voyager 2
’s flyby of the Uranian moon, Miranda, were digitally reprocessed into this new mosaic of the smallest, and most bizarre, body-orbiting seventh planet. Planetary scientists still don’t understand how such abruptly different kinds of terrain could end up all jumbled together like this.

Neptune, Triton, and the Rings.
Voyager 2
wide-angle and narrow-angle views of Neptune, its faint ring system, its large moon Triton, and simulated views of the background stars at the time of
Voyager 2
’s flyby, were combined in this digitally-reprocessed mosaic depicting the last port of call for the mission.

Voyager 2
Color Mosaic of Neptune’s Large Moon Triton.
The blueish-green “cantaloupe” terrain at center and top of this view consists of ridges and plains of nitrogen ice, while the pinkish, mottled region at the bottom is thought to be a polar cap made mostly of methane ice. Black streaks in the polar cap mark the locations of the geysers detected by
Voyager
scientists.

A Simplified Model of the Heliosphere.
The sun is at the center of this cartoon model of the “bubble” of solar magnetic field lines (black, radiating out from the sun) and solar wind particles (colored green to red based on their temperatures). The bubble is interacting with interstellar magnetic field lines (black, coming in from right to left) and interstellar particles (colored blue to teal based on their cooler temperatures). The paths of
Voyager 1
and
Voyager 2
as of early 2014 are also shown. The boundary between the green and teal regions is the heliopause, which
Voyager 1
crossed in 2012 and
Voyager 2
is predicted to cross soon.

Notes and Further Reading

Direct quotes in the book come from a series of interviews that I conducted during 2013 and early 2014 with many
Voyager
friends and colleagues that I’ve had the privilege of talking with and/or working with. I recorded and transcribed the interviews, and confirmed the use of the quotes with each interviewee. I have listed these folks among the Acknowledgments because I am truly grateful for their time and patience!

Chapter 1. Voyagers

the privilege of walking on another world
:
To be the hit of the party sometime (at least, the kinds of parties I go to  .  .  .), memorize and then recite all twelve of their names! In order of their missions (
Apollos
11–12
,
14–17
): Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin; Pete Conrad and Alan Bean; Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell; James Irwin and David Scott; Charles Duke and John Young; and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt and Gene Cernan.

so cute with their long necks and bulging eyes!
:
Does “cuteness” matter in space exploration? See planetary scientist Melissa Rice’s thoughts on the topic in her Planetary Society blog entry “In Memory of
Spirit
, and Why Cuteness Matters” at planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/3065.html.

largest public-membership space-advocacy organization
:
You can learn more about the history and vision of The Planetary Society at planetary.org. I can’t help but sing the accolades of this merry band of fellow space explorers, as I happen to be the society’s president!