Kannada has gone a long way : TOI article

BANGALORE: Two messages in English sent from Hubli may have made their way to the moon (3,84,000 kms from earth), but another one in Kannada has already passed Neptune - 500 crore kms from Earth — and is still going beyond!

Japan selected two goodwill messages from two residents of Hubli to fly in its spacecraft to Moon in 2007. A proud moment for Karnataka. But a greater moment came when one goodwill message in Kannada, send by two Kannadiga residents in the US, was selected to fly on-board Voyager I and II way back in 1977. These messages have gone beyond the Moon, to Neptune, currently the farthest planet from Earth.

The message has three words in Kannada — Kannadigara Paravagi Shubhashayagalu. The Kannada message has been incorporated in a metal disc called the Golden Disc designed by astronomer Carl Sagan. The disc, which has other languages, sounds, voices and pictures of Earth will remain inside the spacecraft — as long and far as they travel, and survive.

"Goodwill messages are invited by space agencies to be taken to any potential extra-terrestrial intelligent life form, to see whether they understand anything of the human being and the Earth, scientists observed.

What's fascinating is that the spacecrafts, which took off in 1977, are still flying with the Kannada message. "While one spacecraft has crossed Jupiter and Saturn, the other has crossed Uranus and Neptune too. The crafts are in the solar system but travelling away from it. We don't know when the crafts will reach the end of the solar system or whether there is an end. But they are heading that way," an ISRO scientist said.

Voyager I and II were launched to study and cross all planets and the solar system itself.

The crafts have been in space for the last 30 years and will continue to be there for many more years to come.

Incredibly, the crafts are running on nuclear batteries and will last as long as the batteries last.

That may be another 30 to 40 years, by which time they may be approaching a possible boundary of the solar system. Just imagine how far Kannada has gone!

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