This is a present from a small distant world

A letter from Earth

Today’s letter comes to you on the 100th birthday of Jimmy Carter. It can also be found in one of my books, Letters of Note: Space, which, I must say, is out of this world.

---

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is depicted in this artist’s concept traveling through interstellar space, or the space between stars, which it entered in 2012. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 is now more than 24.7 billion kilometres from Earth, having crossed into interstellar space in 2012; its sibling, Voyager 2, launched the same year. Aboard each of these remarkable spacecraft is the Voyager Golden Record, a 12-inch gold-plated disc etched with hundreds of sounds and images that capture the essence of life on Earth—a message in a bottle, cast into the cosmic sea. It also holds the following letter, written by then-US President Jimmy Carter for the attention of any distant civilisation that may encounter it. A gesture of goodwill from Earth that offers a snapshot of our hopes and dreams, and a desire to connect across the vastness of space.