Wonderbringers Newsletter with Monica Parker
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Hello wonderseekers!
I was intrigued this week to read about Voyager 1’s communication glitch and NASA’s attempts to salvage the almost 50-year-old spacecraft. Launched in 1977 (when I was a mear 4 years old) and now 15 billion miles away from Earth, Voyager 1 has been faithfully communicating back to NASA equipped with technology that has 240,000 times less memory than an iPhone and uses fewer watts of electricity than a refrigerator light bulb.
The first spacecraft to leave our solar system, Voyager 1 took the now famous 1990 photo known as the ‘pale blue dot,’ a backward view of Earth from space, where our planet looks like scarcely more than a dust mote. The last photo it took before it shut down that functionality to save power. When I view the image where our planetary home occupies only a single pixel, I find my breath catches a bit in my throat. How fragile and insignificant we look. How fragile and insignificant we are.
NASA thinks it has a software fix to get comms back online, but in the end, it is a losing battle. The spacecraft, like all of us, is aging and comms will cease when it eventually loses power from its nuclear energy source, a chunk of plutonium. But it will likely outlast us all. Barring any collision, it will continue on its deep space trajectory (carrying music including Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Blind Willie Johnson, and Chuck Berry — and humpback whales) — our clunky, spunky emissary persisting after AI or climate change or crazy dictators or a meteor makes quick work of humanity.
If you could send a message out to the universe, knowing it could be billions of years in the future before it is received, what would it be? My thoughts below.
Some wonderbringers for me this week:
Someday, Earth Will Have a Final Total Solar Eclipse: The moon will drift far enough from Earth that it no longer fully obstructs the sun.
Who pays when space junk rips through your home?: A 1.6lb object went through Alejandro Otero's roof and two floors of his home, but NASA won't return his calls.
Exploring astronauts’ mental health: New documentary ‘Space: The Longest Goodbye’.
I am so excited to share that a podcast I recorded in New York a few months ago has now been published! Check out the Smart Rookie episode, How to Solve The Curiosity Crisis with Wonder (Live). It was such a party! Kelly Hoey emceed, Elizabeth Talerman interviewed, and I was joined on the panel by Melissa Gonzales, Andy Grover, and Dan Mazzarini. We really did have as much fun as it sounded!
With wonder,
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