I detail the odysseys of three of my favorite probes: Curiosity, Cassini-Huygens, and Voyager 2. This blog is packed with breathtaking pictures.

When do you think the last time humans traveled beyond low Earth orbit (99 mi) was? Last week? Last month? Try 42 years ago, in 1972. 1972. Back when Pong was revolutionary. Back when my old ass Dad was only 12. What happened?

After we showed Russia who the real astronauts were by landing on the Moon, the space race was over. The Soviet space program deteriorated with its country, and NASA no longer had any competition. So, naturally, NASA quickly began to lose funding, because everyone knows that advancing a frontier is pointless unless you can rub it in someone’s face. Manned spaceflight (beyond low Earth orbit) abruptly stopped because of this lack of funding. Apparently, astronauts “need” things like air, food, water, and protection, things that raise the price and the weight of a spacecraft considerably. Instead of just finding tougher astronauts, NASA outsourced the duties of space exploration to robotic probes. There have been a lot of these probes over the past 40 years, so I’ll just go through my top 3 favorites.

3. Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity)

 

After an interplanetary voyage of 9 months, NASA’s Curiosity rover successfully landed at Gale Crater on August 6, 2012.

 

 

When it’s not killing cats, Curiosity, the largest rover ever made, uses the instruments it’s packed with to hunt for organic compounds in the Martian soil, examine Martian rocks, find water, and measure radiation from space that reaches the Martian surface. In the two years it has spent at its new home, Curiosity has already made some weighty discoveries. The rover’s Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) has taken encouraging data that implies dangerous cosmic rays wouldn’t be much of a problem for Martian microbial life or for future manned missions to Mars. Also, in February of 2013, Curiosity drilled into a common Martian rock and analyzed its chemical makeup. Surprisingly, the rock dust was found to contain many staples of life, including carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur. In addition to this discovery, Curiosity has also found clay in the soil and rocks of its landing site. This find seems kind of trivial until you realize that clay only forms in the presence of water. Combined with the fact that clearly defined, seemingly carved channels run throughout the crater, this discovery makes the existence of water on Mars at some time in the past distinctly plausible. All of this evidence supports the idea that Mars was not always a barren wasteland. Here’s some pictures taken by Curiosity over the course of its journey:

 

 

2. Cassini-Huygens

Launched in October of 1997, the Cassini-Huygens probe, part lander and part orbiter, was made to explore Saturn and its many moons. After a flyby of Jupiter, it began orbiting Saturn on July 1, 2004, becoming the first spacecraft ever to do so. The probe made many passes of the Saturnian moons, especially Titan. Titan, a bit larger than Mercury, is the second biggest moon in our entire solar system, and is one of the prime candidates for housing life. On Christmas Day of 2004, the probe jettisoned its lander, sending it into a Titan-intercept orbit. It landed on Titan in mid-January.

Data from the lander confirmed the existence of water ice and lakes of organic compounds. While the lander was chilling on Titan, the orbiter continued its flybys of the other moons. One of these moons, Enceladus, was of particular interest to us.

actual footage of the frozen moon

 

In 2005, the orbiter detected a small water vapor atmosphere on the moon, and observed active water geysers spewing mist from the south pole.

 

 

Three years afterwards, in 2008, the orbiter actually flew through one of the clouds of mist created by the geysers, finding that it was rich in organic compounds. This, combined with recently discovered evidence for an underground ocean and a core made of rock, makes Enceladus yet another prime candidate for having life.

Much later, in mid-2013, the probe was behind Saturn as the planet passed in front of the Sun. Carolyn Porco, a NASA planetary scientist, suggested flipping the probe’s cameras around to capture the moment. The resulting photo, titled “The Day the Earth Smiled”, has been hailed by many as the most beautiful photo ever taken.

 

 

1. Voyager 2

 

My favorite probe, Voyager 2, was launched on August 20, 1977. Its primary mission was to explore the Jupiter and Saturn systems, but it went above and beyond, literally. The probe reached Jupiter in July of 1979. After discovering three new moons and some rings surrounding Jupiter, Voyager 2 took a look at one of the Galilean moons, Io. Back on Earth, NASA planetary scientists combed through the pictures of Io and saw what looked like material being ejected from the moon.

 

 

 

This puzzled them, until they realized what they were looking at was a giant erupting volcano. Together with its twin, Voyager 1, the probe observed 9 volcanic eruptions on the surface of Io.

 

 

 

Voyager arrived at Saturn in August of 1981. The probe flew through Saturn’s atmosphere, finding that it consists of mainly hydrogen and helium at around -300 degrees F. It also studied the intricacies of Saturn’s rings, and took some pictures of the nearby moons.

 

 

 

 

 

This was supposed to be the extent of Voyager 2’s duties, but, because of the wonderful discoveries it had already made, the mission was extended. Voyager 2 would be the first probe to visit the rest of the outer planets.

In January of 1986, the probe arrived at Uranus. It quickly discovered 10 new moons and a ring system, and investigated Uranus’s bizarre axial tilt of nearly 90 degrees. Voyager also studied one of the more interesting moons of Uranus, called Miranda. This moon has extremely odd, messy topological features that splotch its surface. Data from Voyager 2 helped scientists develop the hypothesis that Miranda had been shattered by a huge impact and then reformed over some time.

 

 

The probe arrived at its last stop, Neptune, in August of 1989. Voyager is the only probe to ever accomplished this feat. After passing within 3,000 miles of the Neptunian atmosphere, the probe took a close look at Neptune’s biggest moon, Triton. Here, Voyager found cryovolcanos (ice volcanos), geysers with year-long eruptions, more organic compounds, and terrain that looked like the skin of a cantaloupe.

 

 

 

After leaving Triton, Voyager 2 just kept going, moving farther and farther away from the us and the Sun. Right now, it is nearing the border of our solar system. It’s only a year or two away from reaching true interstellar space. Voyager has really lived up to its name. It will continue hurtling through space until it hits something, which is very unlikely, or until something finds it, which is even more unlikely. However, if this does happen, Voyager carries a gift for its extraterrestrial saviors.

 

 

 

This is the Voyager Golden Record, a piece of metal meant to serve as our ambassador. It can be played back to hear and see the highlights of our home. And, if the aliens are interested in visiting, it also has a map. Among the “Sounds of Earth” are greetings in most languages, music ranging from classical to early rock, laughing, babies crying, and even whale songs. Pictures include snapshots of Earth’s many cultures, our DNA structure, animals and insects, beaches, sand dunes, mountains, seashells, world wonders, and astronauts. No one really thinks the record will ever find its way into the weird tentacles of an extraterrestrial, but the fact that it’s on a craft millions of miles away from us ensures that, no matter what happens to humanity, there will always be a window into us, our home, and our passions floating somewhere out in space, like, as Carl Sagan put it, a bottle in the cosmic ocean.