@PopularMechanics _ April 2019 69written over and over, of all that I have seen
and known.
In the wake of Vo ya ge r 1, with these
cameras I imaged the banded majesty of
Jupiter, the Great Red Spot swirling under
me as I plunged past, clouds of sulfur rising
in geysers above the horizon of Io. At Saturn
the rings sang like wind on a deserted beach,
sang for no other audience but me while I
soared past Hyperion. I heard the aurorae
crowning both the poles, and lightning
f lickering above the wind-torn clouds;
watched Saturn’s crescent shape, arrowed
across by the rings, diminish into a star.
After Saturn, I voyaged alone. Alone
I witnessed what had been seen by no eye
before, not human, not robotic. I was the
first work of human hands to breach the sky
above Uranus and its boiling ocean. I was the
first to come among Oberon, Ariel, Umbriel,
Titania, Miranda, and make of each a world
distinct in all its scars of fault and fracture,
the frozen lava flows of water, ammonia , and
methane. I saw all these and more. And still
I alone have been there.
Then only Neptune lay ahead, deep blue
as the sea, racked by winds of 1,200 miles
per hour. Under a pallid, shrunken sun
Triton vents plumes of gas into the sky, and
wisps of cloud fall as nitrogen snow. Over
Neptune’s pole then down I f lew, out into
emptiness where no planets lie. All this
I imaged. But all I saw only frames what
lies ahead: untraveled emptiness receding
forever. I am not done with exploration.
I warm myself beside canisters of plu-
tonium, their first half-life of eighty-seven
years not half gone. In my thrusters I retain
sufficient hydrazine to keep my dish t urned
homeward, where still I send this trickle of
ones and zeroes at 160 bits per second, overthe eleven billion miles between me and
Earth. The engineers in mission control
must be a different generation now, the chil-
dren of those who sent me on this journey.
Outside of mission control, humanity still
goes about its business. I would not know
what that business was, but for this golden
disc I clutch to my central housing. But
though I see their faces, hear their voices
raised in greeting, I do not know. What must
a life be, lived always under familiar skies?
Space may be empty, but it is not change-
less. Though my cameras are gone blind,
still I sense the solar wind that pushes at
my back. From ahead, cosmic rays strike
at my remaining sensors. They come faster
now, faster. I sense some break impending.
The wind dies behind me; for a moment
I luff in emptiness: this is the heliopause.
Interstellar space opens out before me. In
the sudden silence, cosmic rays fall even
faster from the darkness out ahead, from
stars gone supernova, even from black holes
in other galaxies where stars are shredded
as they fa ll into infinit y. Once par t of those,
they touch me now. I feel them, substantial
on my sensors, pieces of the Universe. Now
I know: Space is not empty. I am in it.
I am not done with this Grand Tour.
Though I have left the sun behind, still my
dish points backward to Earth. Still my
sensors reveal the universe to which I now
belong, to which we all belong: the glory of
it. So I hold tightly to this golden disc, with
its record of the sights and sounds of Earth,
and remember my makers, who sent me
here, where they cannot yet go.Voyager 2 launched
on a Grand Tour of the
solar system in 1977.
Top right: Each Voyager
probe carries a golden
record recorded with
signatures of Earth, like a
picture of Monument Valley
and music by Chuck Berry.
Right: Jupiter’s moon Io
features sulfurous geysers.THE TOURIST’S GUIDE TO SPACEAt Saturn the rings
sang like wind on a
deserted beach, sang
for no other audience
but me as I soared
past Hyperion.