Chronology

From the first catalogued stars to journeys we have not yet made. Entries past the present are marked speculative: extrapolated, not recorded.

1. c. 1600 BCE

   Babylonian star catalogues

   Enuma Anu Enlil records the motion of Venus over 21 years — the earliest sustained, systematic sky-watching we hold a record of.

2. 1608 – 1609

   The telescope turns skyward

   Lippershey files a patent for a spyglass; within a year Galileo points a refined version at Jupiter and finds it has moons of its own.

3. 1687

   Principia

   Newton describes gravitation as one law governing a falling apple and an orbiting Moon alike. The sky stops being separate physics.

4. 1957

   Sputnik 1

   First artificial object to orbit the Earth. Twenty–three days of beeping telemetry that opened the archive this terminal keeps.

5. 1969

   Apollo 11

   First crewed landing on another body. Two sets of footprints still on the Sea of Tranquility, undisturbed by wind that isn't there.

6. 1977

   Voyager 1 & 2 launched

   Each carries a gold–plated record of Earth sounds, greetings in fifty–five languages, and instructions no one has yet confirmed were read.

7. 1990

   Hubble Space Telescope

   A mirror above the atmosphere's distortion. Deep field exposures begin returning thousands of galaxies in single frames of black.

8. 2020s

   The exoplanet survey era

   Infrared observatories catalogue atmospheres of worlds we will never visit in person, only in spectra.

9. c. 2150 — speculative

   First generation ship departs

   Extrapolated entry. A multi–generation vessel departs for Proxima Centauri b; arrival, if it happens, is not this terminal's problem.

10. c. 2400 — speculative

    First confirmed reply

    Extrapolated entry. A signal returns from beyond the solar system, decoded generations after it was sent. Origin unconfirmed.