Since The Jwst Is On Everyone's Minds Right Now, I Want To Take A Second To Remember Voyager I, Our Little

since the jwst is on everyone's minds right now, i want to take a second to remember voyager i, our little interstellar probe that could. it's out past the sun's reach now, traveling away from us at nearly 40,000 mph. and it carries with it the "golden record".

we knew when we sent it that it would eventually leave the solar system, and would someday -- many, many years in the future -- find another star or solar system. eventually. the laws of physics demand it.

and so we put a record of ourselves with it. just in case -- in the highly unlikely, but still possible, event that it happened upon a world with intelligent life that could understand it. our message in a bottle, cast out into the endless sea of space.

we recorded our voices, in many languages. we recorded the sounds of wild animals, of insects, of water rushing. we recorded brainwaves.

ann druyan's brainwaves, in fact. an hour of them, as she thought of all kinds of things.

she and carl sagan worked on this project together, and over the course of their work, they fell in love.

she took the time, during the recordings, to think of him, and how she felt about him.

so that love -- not just earth's existence, or its sounds, or human voices, but love -- would be sent out in our message, cast out into the ocean of space, in the distant hope that someday, somewhere, something would see it and hear us, and know us, and know how we feel.

even if voyager i never finds another life in the universe, even if the golden record is never played, i think it's important that we sent it anyway. what it says about us as a people, our hope and our optimism and our faith and our love -- we cast this all out into the stars.

"dare to cast thy bread upon the sea," indeed.