Loneliness in space has many zeros

Danilo Anton.

Human beings have an earthly dimension of loneliness. Antarctica, large deserts, uninhabited forests, the great oceans, are all environments in which it is possible to be alone, away from other people, towns and cities. In all these places the distances between isolated individuals from populated areas is just a few hundred kilometers, maybe thousands.
A similar loneliness but related to the technical difficulties to go up and return occurs in Earth orbit. Astronauts are not too far from the Earth's surface (only about 300 or 400 kilometers), but it seems it was much more because of the risks involved in the rise and fall of the orbital levels.
Travel to the moon adds new elements of loneliness. The lunar astronauts were all the time at a distance of 350,000 kilometers from their homes, with a single fragile return vehicle, exposed to the vulnerability of the lunar atmosphere, without significant atmosphere and temperatures can range from 130 degrees Celsius at lunst noon to 150 below zero at night (one lunar day lasts 29 Earth days):
However, the moon is near when compared to Mars, where many probes have been sent, some of which are still active on the Martian surface. The distance to Mars varies due to respective orbital motions of Mars and Earth. At the moment when they are nearer the distance is 60,000,000 kilometers and when they are further away the distance is 400,000,000 kilometers.
If you think about the distances to the large planets you need to add zeros. Jupiter distance can vary between 800,000,000 and 1,100,000,000 km.  Saturn, when closer is distant 1,200,000,000 km and 1,700,000,000 km when further.away  Uranus is even more remote: 2,600,000,000 km when it is close 2,900,000,000 km while away. The last major planet, distant 4,700,000,000 km and 4,300,000,000 respectively is Neptune and finally the now classified "dwarf planet" Pluto is 4,280,000,000 kilometers when it is "close" and 7,500,000,000 kilometers at its maximum distance.
Of course, these are just numbers. It is not easy to feel the loneliness in these great distances just looking at the numbers.

It may help to perceive these loneliness to tell the story of the New Horizons probe to Pluto which made the trip from Earth in recent years.  Launched on January 19, 2006, it had to travel more than nine years to approach Pluto to arrive much later on July 17, 2015.
These were 9 years in the solitude and emptiness of space. At a  high speed of 30.000 to 50.000 km per hour it took more than 9 years. The distance traveled was not straight so the final travelled distance was 12,500,000,000 kilometers.
During its trip it was subjected to extreme temperatures, down to 240-250 degrees below zero, or even less (in Pluto's surface temperature varies between -220 and -230).
Yet it was connected to the earth when it was required and for for several months sent very rich information which still is being evaluated.
The probe continues its space navigation route to a small planetary object about 100 kilometers across called 2014 MU69. It needs to go other 1.500,000,000 kilometers in the cold, near absolute zero,  and in the indescribable loneliness. And during all the journey the probe will continue to send data to the base of operations on Earth.

It will reach the astral object the first of January 2019, it will collect the information plan and continue their space drive sending data for several months. It is expected that it will loose contact  in 2023 or 2024. The journey will continue, New Horizons will leave the solar system, and will continue its interstellar space travel for thousands, tens of thousands, millions of years.
Probably it may pass close to a nearby star 10 light years away, within 100,000 years. The distance to our planet would be 100,000,000,000,000 kilometers.
Perhaps at that time humanity and even the human species may have disappeared.
Or even travelled at larger distances.