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A metal plate the size of a standard sheet of printer paper shoots through space as you read this, engraved with the thoughts of American poet Ada Limón:
“Arch under the inky night sky
with black expanse we point
to the planets we know,”
Indeed, this slate-gray slab is bound for a world that has plagued humanity’s dreams since the dawn of astronomy: our solar system’s sunset-tinged gas giant, Jupiter. It’s attached to a spacecraft called the Europa Clipper, NASA’s silvery solar-winged probe built to study the intricacies of a Jupiter moon that scientists calculate could have harbored life long ago. That probe launched on October 14 during its mission; it is somewhere in the vastness of space and is now heading towards Europe.
But the sturdy sign – which contains much more than just Limón’s poignant words – also features a twin brother who lives on our planet. The replica is located at the Brand Library & Art Center in Glendale, California, and the simple fact that it exists invites us to reflect on the peculiar divide between art and science, or lack thereof.
“we / pin quick wishes on stars. From earth,
we read the sky as if it were an infallible book
of the universe, knowledgeable and clear.
Yet there are mysteries under our sky:
the whale song, the singing of the songbird
its cry in the branch of a wind-shaken tree.”
If you take this line of thought to its most extreme level, you could argue that literally everything is a work of art, and the entire subject of this story is moot. You might also argue that literally everything is scientific, which leads to the same conclusion. I find myself floating between the two.
Related: The artist who shaped the four-dimensional fabric of space and time
The way small vibrations in your home can make water ripple in a Poland Spring bottle is quite fascinating if you focus on it, the general reflective properties of mirrors are consistently used in artists’ exhibitions, and the Gauss-Bonnet theorem, which is used to measure the curvature of complex shapes is often the case referred to by mathematicians as ‘beautiful’. Even psychological concepts, such as the inexplicable qualia that accompany new physical experiences, are “artistic.” What is essentially only science or only art?
‘We are creatures of constant awe,
curious about beauty, about leaves and blossoms,
in sorrow and pleasure, sun and shade.”
Perhaps there is a way to try to find the line between the two topics, even if it is subjective. In my view, art at a fundamental level can be considered the pursuit of aesthetics, while science at a fundamental level can be considered the pursuit of knowledge. Yet of course I have the feeling that there are cross-pollinations; for example, I would say that both could easily be considered the pursuit of truth. Philosophers, artists And scientists We’ve been discussing these kinds of questions for decades, and we’re certainly not going to address them in this article.
But what about the division between art and art? astronomy specifically? The lines seem even blurrier. Unlike botany, for example, astronomy is a subject that usually requires us to imagine our goals. Although we cannot see chlorophyll with the naked eye, we can see the leaves that contain it with great ease.
On the other hand, we can’t glimpse an event horizon of a black hole, a diamond-encrusted exoplanet, or a horse-head-shaped fissure of a nebula for what they are – at least, with our current technology. (Even Albert Einstein didn’t think we’d witness the gravitational waves rippling through the universe when two black holes collide, but in 2016 we did. It’s no wonder that astronomy and faith were much more closely intertwined in ancient times than before. are today.)
Furthermore, defining the edge of the universe could be a mystery that we may never solve, and because we are human, we cannot precisely understand light-year distances – research has shown this. even shown that the brains of physicists work differently than those of non-physicists, because the former have to constantly think about unfathomable scales. Unlike many other scientific subjects, such as mineralogy or clinical medicine, astronomy also has the potential to explain our existence in the most comprehensive terms.
Yet astronomy seeks to illuminate these somewhat ineffable concepts in much the same way that art seeks to express the ineffable through images, sound, words, or any other medium – in turn, both cultivate a certain deep, disturbing, and existential feeling within us, and we chase that feeling.
Of course, arguments will always be made in different directions, but at its core, analyzing space seems to evoke something in us that other scientific subjects do not. Cosmic discoveries can offer both respite and fear, but also a sense of unity and loneliness. And I think art has a unique ability to mimic that, and often aims to mimic that.
The Voyager Golden Records left the solar system with evidence that humanity was occupying space in the cosmos, with images of Olympic sprinters and someone eat grapes in the supermarket snippets of a Peruvian wedding song and Louis Armstrong’s ‘Melancholy Blues’ – and to this day they make people emotional. This data not only transcended the standard definition of scientific research, but also proved that there is something special, isolated, and even artistic about humanity as a whole.
In addition to Limón’s poem, the Europa Clipper’s sign features an engraving of The Drake Equation, written in the handwriting of the late astrophysicist and astrobiologist Frank Drake. The equation is a mathematical formula related to finding intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy. This is an apt reference, as the Europa Clipper’s main astrobiological mission is to see whether or not Europa shows signs of habitability. The spacecraft will not be looking for evidence of life, but rather evidence that this world is conducive to harboring life (as we know it).
Related stories:
— Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ surprisingly complies with the laws of physics, scientists find
– SETI tests new alien hunting strategy, but TRAPPIST-1 planets remain silent
– Why haven’t we found intelligent alien civilizations? There may be a ‘universal limit to technological development’
It also includes a sketch of Ron Greeley, who founded the field of planetary science and helped the Apollo astronauts reach the moon, and a microchip containing 2.6 million names of Earthlings who signed up to be on one or to be taken outside the earth in some other way. And most strikingly, one entire side of the plate is engraved with waveforms of the word ‘water’, spoken in different languages.
“And it is not the darkness that unites us,
not the cold distance of space, but
the sacrifice of water, every drop of rain,
every stream, every pulse, every vein.
O second moon, we too are made
of water, of vast and inviting seas.”
This record is important because scientists hope that aliens with the right tools and enough curiosity will one day find it in the Jovian system – but it is also important because it has already given us the ‘something’ for which we depend on astronomy and on the art.
‘We too are made of miracles, of greatness
and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds,
of the need to shout through the darkness.”
The trip to the Brand Library & Art Center was funded by the Getty Museum as part of the PST: Art and Science Collide event.