Nearly 40 years ago, on 20 August 1977, the Voyager 2 space probe was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to study the Solar System's four outermost planets. It was followed 15 days later by the launch of an identical spacecraft, Voyager 1. The Voyager spacecraft -Image from NASA Although Voyager 1 was… Continue reading Voyager 40th anniversary
Tag: Humanity
Humanity
Artefacts From Earth
This is the final post in a series about human efforts to contact extraterrestrials. Today I want to discuss the objects which have already been sent out into interstellar space in the hope that at some point in the distant future an alien civilisation will retrieve and decipher them. The Pioneer Plaque On 3 March 1972 Pioneer… Continue reading Artefacts From Earth
This is Earth Calling
Sending Messages to be picked up by alien civilisations is called METI (Messaging to Extraterrestial Intelligence) and is an activity which has taken place with increasing frequency over the past few decades. Advocates of METI argue that in addition to searching for extraterrestrial signals we can increase our chances of making contact with aliens by sending messages to stars which… Continue reading This is Earth Calling
Living on the Moon.
For centuries novelists have written about humans living and working on the moon. One of my favourite science fiction novels is "A Fall of Moondust" by the British author Arthur C Clarke (1917-2008). It was written in 1961, before man had ventured into space and when we knew very little about the Moon's surface, but set in the… Continue reading Living on the Moon.
Explaining Science 