Visiting The Colbert Report in 2013, the eponymous host asked NASA scientist Ed Stone if he was ever annoyed by the fact that the agency’s astronauts received all the parades and fanfare while researchers worked behind the scenes.
“No,” Stone replied, “we’re having too much fun.”
Stone even served as chief scientist for the space agency’s Voyager mission, which sent two spacecraft on humanity’s longest, farthest and still ongoing exploration mission. half a century, from 1972 to 2022. This mission brought back astonishing and never-before-seen images of our solar system. It was also the first mission to fly by all four mysterious outer planets, the first to discover many moons around each of these planets, the first to discover active volcanoes on another world, and much more. Ultimately, both Voyager craft were the first to leave our cosmic environment and enter the realm between the stars.
The legendary researcher died on June 9, 2024 at the age of 88. But his inspired vision, for both scientists and children looking up from our place in the Milky Way Galaxy, is immortal.
“He will forever be an inspiration to all who do #DareMightyThings,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is leading the interstellar mission, wrote online.
NASA scientist viewed first Voyager images. What he saw gave him chills.
Stone realized that Voyager’s discoveries needed to reach the millions of people outside the gates of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, rather than sitting in a room while scientists slowly parsed the findings. The space agency would receive new images of Jupiter or Neptune, for example, in the afternoon, and Voyager’s science team would quickly discuss and choose the best discoveries to present to a curious audience.
‘Dr. Stone, you are my hero too.”
“The scientists would hone their presentations that evening and even overnight — with Stone often pressing them to come up with analogies that would make the material more accessible to a lay audience — while a graphics team worked to put together supporting images,” NASA explained. in a statement.
Mashable speed of light
This changed lives.
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A view of Neptune from Voyager 2, taken in 1989. Strong bubble bands are seen across the atmosphere.
Credit: NASA
“RIP Ed Stone, long-time leader of the Voyager mission. I learned so much from him during the Neptune encounter: both how to maximize science and how to share science with the world,” Heidi B. Hammel, a planetary astronomer and NASA astronomer. award-winning science communicator, wrote on the website X (formerly Twitter). Hammel, who helped Voyager 2 capture the first images of Neptune in 1989, is now investigating the origins of life as a leading scientist on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope mission.
Hiro Ono, today a NASA roboticist, shared online that Voyager 2’s journey past Neptune sparked his deep interest in exploring the cosmos. “I was six years old when Voyager 2 encountered Neptune,” Hiro Stone emailed in 2018. “Since then, it has been my dream to build a spacecraft like Voyager. 24 years later, I proudly joined JPL. Now working I work on Mars 2020 Rover and Europa Lander. Every day is so exciting.”
“Voyager 2 is my hero who showed me the way,” Ono added. “Doctor Stone, you are my hero too. Thank you.’
Stone, a busy project scientist who led the agency’s confirmation that Voyager 2 had made the big leap into interstellar space, found time to respond:
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Ed Stone speaks to the media during the historic 1986 Uranus flyby.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The year after their trip to Neptune, the Voyager team made plans to take an unprecedented “family portrait” of the planets, including Earth, at a time when Voyager was some 6 billion kilometers away. “This is not only the first time, but perhaps the only time in decades that we have been able to take a picture of the planets from outside the solar system,” Stone said at the time.
A family portrait of planets taken by Voyager 1 looking back at our solar system in 1990. Earth is the center dot in the top row.
Credit: NASA
Today, Voyager 1 is more than 15 billion miles away, and Voyager 2 is more than 12 billion miles away. They will eventually run out of nuclear power — perhaps in the mid-2030s — but the mission will continue as our “silent ambassador” to the cosmos, Stone told Colbert. Both Voyagers carry a 12-inch protective record containing various sounds and images of Earth.
Whether or not anyone listens, the Stone-led mission will have a long-lived legacy far beyond our solar system.
“These two spacecraft will now orbit the center of our Milky Way for billions of years,” he said.