We learned that we're made of many little dead things, which make up bigger things that are not dead, for some reason, and that we're just another temporary stage in a history going back over a billion years.

In four billion years, our own star will follow its fate, collapsing into a white dwarf. We exist only by chance, after all. The Voyager will still be sailing into the interstellar shorelessness on the wings of the “heavenly breezes” Kepler had once imagined, carrying Beethoven on a golden disc crafted by a symphonic civilization that long ago made... See more