“Tourism x Astrophysics” Traveling in This Way

xTourism (Cross Tourism) is a thought process of intersectionality of various concepts in tourism for new values and systems.

Tourism in Japan is undergoing a globalization and digitalization. With changes in society and diversity in the thought process of the people, there are many players in the industry, which help to expand its growth and reach. This page promotes the intersectionality of tourism and another keyword. The page is a place where we can think about the future of tourism in the times that change so rapidly. We’ll look back in history and learn from experts about universal values and the latest developments.

Professor Haruo Saji, the leading figure on Fluctuation Theorem, a theory about the creation of space, discusses the fundamental values of travel.

　
MISORA Honorary Head of the Astronomical Observatory, Honorary Chancellor of Suzuka Junior College, and Visiting Professor at the Osaka College of Music

The Final Journey

When I think of the word, “travel,” I remember something. An artificial object, the first in human history, to venture out on journey somewhere far away, never to return to the Earth. Fourty-eight years ago in 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 1, a space probe that was set to explore the solar system. The Voyager acts as our eyes and ears to explore the farther reaches of space, places that humans cannot journey to. It is currently located 24.8 billion kilometers away from earth as of January 2025, a distance that would take 23 hours and 8 minutes to get to using the speed of light. To understand how far this is, imagine the diameter of the sun to be a one-meter-long exercise ball. The Earth is a small, one-centimeter pachinko ball that is 100 meters away. Neptune, the farthest planet away from the sun, is the size of a cherry located three kilometers away. Voyager 1 is one-tenth the size of an influenza virus that is 17 kilometers away. It has seen many discoveries on its path that humankind has not and is currently traveling at a tremendous speed of 60,000 kilometers per second. It seems to be going in the direction of the Serpent Bearer constellation. Furthermore, we still receive signals from the Voyager 1, but the camera is no longer working – blinding us from seeing anymore. However, we can still hear and as of this moment in time, it is still traveling the dark expanses of space – where we can hear the stars as it sends that information back to us.

Voyager 1 on Its Journey to Explore Horizons
（Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech）

And as you may know, the Golden Record is located on the side of the Voyager 1 and contains recorded information about Earth. This record is the same size as a regular LP record, covered with gold plating. It was launched with a message from 39th president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, that said, “This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and feelings…We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations.” In addition, greetings in 55 different languages were included with the 23rd being in Japanese that greeted, “Hello, how are you?” The record also included 32 folk songs from around the world, including three songs by Bach. The hidden mathematical properties of his music were included because they were thought to be a potential communication tool for any extraterrestrial intelligent life in the galaxy. My suggestions were included in a part of this.

In addition, there is a mathematical diagram that explains how to play the record on its cover and a graphic that has the location of earth in the galaxy engraved on it. The cover of the record is coated with Uranium 238, which has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Those that find the record will be able to guess the year it was made based on the remaining radiation dose. Basically, the Golden Record is a testament of human civilization and acts a time capsule to be opened in 4.5 billion years. Nevertheless, the sun will expand and swallow the Earth and every trace of it will disappear from the galaxy. If this record should fall into the hands of extraterrestrial intelligent life, they will be able to reimagine the Earth and us, in their minds. It is this never-ending journey that is the ultimate form of travel.

The Golden Record Being Installed on Voyager 1
（Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech）

What Does Travel Mean in Daily Life?

What does travel mean in the sense of our daily lives? Looking back at our evolution, life is set up so that we wouldn’t have experienced it while living in the same place. If we didn’t interact with the air, the food supplies and the whole environment, evolution and creation wouldn’t happen. We cannot continue living by ourselves with just ourselves. Furthermore, the environment we and other living beings exist in continues to change. We must continue to change ourselves to match the environment, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to exist.

On the other hand, we’ll face the lack of ability to notice environmental changes if we become too complacent with it, as we’re living beings with a heart. Large living beings with senses can detect changes in the environment. However, we lose sensitivity to a scent if we’re exposed enough to it – that’s something we all experience. This is because we adjust ourselves to our environment to continue living but if a different scent comes along, we’ll notice it.

If that scent proved to be dangerous to life, we must avoid it at all costs. Let’s talk about the snake, since it is the Year of the Snake this year for several East Asian countries like Japan. A snake sticks its tongue out to detect any changes in infrared radiation. The body temperature of its prey always emits infrared radiation and when it moves, the radiation becomes stronger. Snakes can detect where the prey is located based off this change in radiation. Thus, when you come across a venomous snake, it is important to stay still.

Living beings will grow and learn this way. To survive, they adapt to their surroundings and react to new environments quickly. There, they gain wisdom and adapt themselves to increase their chances of survival. I’m changing the subject here, but let’s talk about the Japanese eel. It is an eel well-known for the long journeys it takes. Although we can catch them in the seas near Japan, they lay their eggs 3,000 kilometers away in west Mariana. These wild eels taste different from the cultivated eels and it’s because of the journey they take.

We as human beings can change our environment to refresh our bodies and our minds. We are able to do this because it is a special characteristic that has formed from long periods of evolution. There, we can think of that as the starting point of travel. In our homes, we can change the way we feel just by moving some furniture around. Humans are sensitive to the environment. Basically, our sensitivity, the way we see things and our feelings are influenced by our environments. By traveling, you can reconfirm a new you, learn new things, and gain new perspectives. We can gain new perspectives by reading as well. However, when you travel – you use your body and your senses. This doesn’t mean that the only way to experience something like that you have to travel abroad. For example, on the road you take the bus – if you walk that road, you might peek at some cracks and see small flowers. You might see some interesting signs you didn’t before. Or, you might be a little happier just enjoying a cup of tea at a café where you can see views of the ocean, getting there by train. These are benefits of traveling on a smaller scale.

　

Traveling Inside the Heart

Traveling does not mean simply going outside. There’s one more type of travel that’s necessary – traveling within your own heart. It is the type of travel that you can experience when you do something you enjoy. In our busy lives, we should take some time, even for just a little bit, to travel within our hearts, meet a new sense of self, and gains some happiness. Traveling outside and within the heart is the first step to a rich life. Traveling and seeing faraway allows you to know yourself. That’s not exaggeration.

To bring this essay to a finish, I’d like to talk about haiku poet from the early Edo period, Matsuo Basho. At the beginning of his well-known work, Oku no Hosomichi (translated as, “The Narrow Road to the Interior”), he writes, “The months and days are the travelers of eternity. The years that come and go are also voyagers.” In other words, “The days and months are travelers that never stop forever, the years that come and go are also travelers themselves.” In comparison to the infinite universe, our lives are limited. The universe contains eternal time, and a layering of space and our existence. Traveling has a beginning and an end within specific time, but a journey has the desire to continue forever. There is one phrase that Basho composed at the end of his life. On the 8th day of the 10th month of the 7th year in the Genroku era, four days before his death, he composed a farewell poem.

“Falling Ill on My Journey, My Dreams Wander Through a Barren Field”

Kagami Shiko, one of Basho’s disciples, writes about when the farewell poem was written in the journal about Matsuo Basho’s death. There’s something interesting about the use of the phrase, “poems composed in one’s sickbed,” in the preface. As I’m not a researcher in literature, I’m hesitant to continue with this discourse, but if this was a farewell poem, that phrase might not have been in the preface. No matter who wrote that phrase in afterwards, we can imagine the Basho’s last moments from those words. It also reads that Basho and his disciples revising pieces of writing –that makes the usage of the phrase unnatural. This basically means Basho himself was fully conscious and alert. This is what I think. I believe he was close to death, but I don’t think he meant it to be a farewell poem. I believe he wanted to get better and go on another journey. Living meant compiling more journeys and it might have been a light of hope that kept burning forever, quietly in his heart.