Speculation about extraterrestrials is not all that new. There was a vibrant debate in 17th-century Europe about the existence of life on other planets.
To all the space probes we’ve loved before: sorry! You fell into Saturn, drifted into deep space, suffocated in Martian dust—all for the greater good of science. Today, we’re memorializing the space explorers that met dramatic endings far, far from Earth.