Forty millennia from now, I’ll be embraced by the warmth of a new sun
Visiting the Great Rift Valley feels grand. This vast, ancient land is more than a landscape; it’s a testament to our origins, a cradle where the earliest hominins walked, struggled, and began shaping the lineage that led to us. Standing here, I couldn’t help but think of Lucy—the tiny, ancient being who lived over three million years ago, her bones preserved as a whisper of our shared ancestry. It’s awe-inspiring to imagine how, from creatures like her, the seeds of human curiosity.
In this valley, our ancestors evolved brains capable of profound complexity, fostering communication, creativity, and problem-solving. Over countless generations, those early minds grew into the powerful, curious brains that we carry today. And it was this remarkable evolution that eventually led us to dream of exploration beyond our immediate surroundings. From simple tools to sophisticated technology, the drive to understand has propelled us across the Earth and, ultimately, out into the cosmos. Now, with machines like Voyager 2, which have broken free from the Sun’s gravitational grip, we have touched the edges of our solar system and begun our journey into the unknown.
Voyager 2’s path through interstellar space serves as a silent ambassador for our species, a message in a bottle that travels beyond our solar neighborhood. Encased within it are recordings of music, greetings, and sounds from Earth—a cultural snapshot meant for any who might one day encounter it. In this tiny spacecraft, we’ve preserved fragments of what we know, love, and wonder about, a reminder of the boundless curiosity that emerged from the Rift Valley and has since crossed the stars.
Voyager 2 is currently located 12.8 billion miles from Earth, about 138 times farther away than our distance from the Sun, drifting through the constellation Pavo. Its journey will eventually bring it within 1.7 light-years of the star Ross 248, in approximately 40,000 years. From the Rift Valley to distant stars, the trajectory of human exploration continues to push outward. How far will our minds, our culture, and our shared yearning for discovery ultimately take us? The journey that began here, in this valley, may reach across the cosmos—an ancient curiosity leading us into an infinite future.