In space, loneliness has many zeros

Human beings possess a terrestrial dimension of loneliness. The Antarctic, the great deserts, the less populated forests, the great oceans, are all environments in which it is possible to be in solitude, far from other people, from towns and cities.

In all these places, the distances that separate isolated individuals from populated areas are only a few hundred kilometers, perhaps thousands.

A similar loneliness but related to the technical difficulties to arrive and to return are felt in the satellite terrestrial orbits. Astronauts are not too far from the surface of our planet (barely 300 or 400 kilometers), although it seems to be much more because of the risks involved in the ascent and descent of orbital levels.

Traveling 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 vehicle available to return, to which it was added the vulnerability of the lunar environment, without significant atmosphere and temperatures that can range from 130 degrees Celsius at noon until 150 degrees below zero at night (1 lunar day lasts 29 Earth days):

The moon is close when compared to Mars, where many probes have been sent and some still remain active on the Martian surface.

The distance to Mars varies due to the respective orbital movements of Mars and Earth. At the moment they are closer, they are distant about 60,000,000 kilometers and when they are further away, the distance is 400,000,000 kilometers.

If one thinks of the distances to the greater planets, one must keep adding zeros. At Jupiter the distance can vary between 800,000,000 and 1,100,000,000 km. In Saturn, it is 1,200,000,000 km when it is closest and 1,700,000,000 when it is farther away. Uranus is even more remote: 2,600,000,000 km when it is near, 2,900,000,000 km when it is far away. The last greater planet, Neptune is 4,300,000,000 and 4,700,000,000 km and finally the planet today classified as "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 difficult to imagine the feeling of loneliness in these great distances simply with these numbers.

Perhaps it helps to perceive what loneliness means is when one examines the story of the New Horizons probe that made the trip to Pluto from Earth in recent years.

Launched from our planet on January 19, 2006, it had to travel more than 9 years to approach Pluto where it arrived 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 New Horizons more than 9 years to arrive.

The distance traveled was not rectilinear, so it traveled for 12,500,000,000 kilometers.

During his trip he was subjected to extreme temperatures that dropped to 240-250 degrees below zero or even less (on Pluto, the surface temperature varies between -220 and -230).

Even so it was communicated with the Earth in the moments that were required, sending for several months very rich information that is still being evaluated.

The probe continues its space navigation towards a small planetary object of about 100 kilometers in diameter called 2014 MU69 for which it needs to travel another 1,500,000,000 kilometers at a slightly reduced speed of 15,000 km / hour in the cold close to absolute zero and the indescribable loneliness, to get to 2014 MU69.

And throughout this journey he will continue to communicate with the base of operations on Earth.

It will arrive at the indicated object on January 1, 2019, At that date it will collect the information that is planned and continue your space drift sending the data for several months, losing contact in the year 2023 or 2024. Its trip will continue, it will leave the solar system, and it will digress in interstellar space by several thousands, tens of thousands, millions of years.

It will probably pass close to a star that is about 10 light years away, within 100,000 years.

Then, the distance to our planet will be 100,000,000,000,000 kilometers.

Maybe at that moment humanity and even the human species itself could have disappeared.

Or traveled to even greater distances.