The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
LOST & FOUND
You don’t have to board a spaceship to explore distant planets, so this temporary halt on terrestrial travel shouldn’t stop us gaining fresh perspectives on our own world, says Ash Bhardwaj
The astronomer Galileo Galilei did not have a spaceship, but he visited the universe through the eyepiece of a telescope. When Galileo pointed one at the planet Jupiter in 1610, he spotted four points of light that changed position over time. He realised that the lights were moons, orbiting another world, which helped to prove that Earth was not at the centre of the universe.
The Catholic Church convicted Galileo of heresy and tried to ban the publication of his work, but his discoveries changed our understanding of reality. Astronomers today still refer to Jupiter’s four largest moons as “the Galilean satellites”.
The Hubble Space Telescope, which celebrated its 30th birthday this year, allowed us to see even further, and to understand even more.
It can see galaxies that are 13 billion light years away and, because the light from those galaxies takes so long to reach us, we are seeing them as they were billions of years ago. That means we can travel back in time, without even leaving our homes.
Hubble can show us what the other planets of our solar system look like. To learn more, we must sample their rocks and measure their atmospheres. But human space travel is dangerous and difficult, because we require air, food, protection and sleep. It also takes years to reach even our closest heavenly neighbours, so we send diligent robotic probes on our behalf.
The home of robotic space exploration is the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, which oversees all of Nasa’s interplanetary missions. JPL also tracks asteroids that pose a threat to Earth, operates satellites that monitor our climate and oceans, and measures the thickness of ice at the poles.
It was through one of these missions that a JPL engineer named Gael Squibb travelled to England in the 1980s. He stayed at my parents’ B&B in Windsor, after escaping a terrible hotel in Slough, and he quickly became a firm friend of the family.
His later visits came with mission stickers, posters, and stories of remarkable technical feats.
Once while I was on assignment in California, Gael arranged for me to visit JPL in Pasadena. JPL does not have a glitzy visitor centre, but it does host full-sized replicas of the two Voyager space probes, which were launched in 1977 to study the outer planets.
The Voyager spacecraft captured my imagination: my favourite childhood book was full of photographs from their fly-by of the ringed planet Saturn; and, aged six, I was allowed to stay up late to watch a programme about Voyager 2 reaching Neptune. In 2012, Voyager became the first man-made object to enter interstellar space, and it is now 14 billion miles from Earth.
By following those formidable spacecraft, I felt like I travelled alongside them. My inability to visit Jupiter or Neptune in person did not matter, because the images and stories were so vivid and compelling. Astronomy developed my sense of adventure, and I share that passion with anyone who will listen.
On a recent Army Reserve training exercise, I used a pair of binoculars to show the Galilean moons to the training warrant officer. He could not believe what he saw – a mere point of light, revealed to be a whole system of worlds – and, the next evening, he borrowed my binoculars to show the same thing to one of the colour sergeants. Inspiration is infectious, and wonder never gets old.
Whenever there’s a clear night, you’ll find me looking up at the everchanging sky. This week, I’ve been
I may never visit Jupiter and Saturn in person, but I’ll never get bored of enjoying them from afar
captivated by the “great conjunction” of Jupiter and Saturn, as a trick of orbital mechanics made them appear to touch in the firmament.
I may never visit those planets in person, but I’ll never get bored of enjoying them from afar.
This year, I have had to do the same thing for my own world. Instead of jumping on planes and trains, I have buried myself in travel books and documentaries. I will not pretend that I prefer it, but vicarious travel provides something unique because it forces me to see the world through another person’s eyes.
Of course, I will return to travel when I can, but I’m loving my rediscovered passion for remote observation. Over the past few months, I’ve been saving up to buy myself a telescope. That way, I can pull those planets just a little bit closer, and be transported to those worlds of wonder and possibility.