The Golden Record (Voyager Interstellar Space Craft)

The Golden Record.org ^ | 10/11/2009 | NASA

[Dallas59]

The Golden Record



Slide Show Of Images

[Dallas59]

Pioneers 10 and 11, which preceded Voyager, both carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find them in the distant future. With this example before them, NASA placed a more ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2-a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials.

The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record-a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University, et. al. Dr. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind and thunder, birds, whales, and other animals.

To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earth-people in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Carter and U.N. Secretary General Waldheim. Each record is encased in a protective aluminum jacket, together with a cartridge and a needle.

Instructions, in symbolic language, explain the origin of the spacecraft and indicate how the record is to be played. The 115 images are encoded in analog form. The remainder of the record is in audio, designed to be played at 16-2/3 revolutions per minute. It contains the spoken greetings, beginning with Akkadian, which was spoken in Sumer about six thousand years ago, and ending with Wu, a modern Chinese dialect. Following the section on the sounds of Earth, there is an eclectic 90-minute selection of music, including both Eastern and Western classics and a variety of ethnic music. Once the Voyager spacecraft leave the solar system (by 1990, both will be beyond the orbit of Pluto), they will find themselves in empty space.

It will be forty thousand years before they make a close approach to any other planetary system. As Carl Sagan has noted, “The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced spacefaring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet.”



Voyager Interstellar Mission

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Trivia Question: Who knows the original name of the Voyager spacecraft before they were renamed “Voyager”?

[Adams]

I.....Am.....Nomad....I....am.....Perfect.....

[cripplecreek]

by 1990, both will be beyond the orbit of Pluto

The new horizons craft will catch and pass the voyagers in under 20 years I believe.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Maybe not perfect, but immortal as long as there are re-runs.

[Hot Tabasco]

the launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean

Kinda like adding a drop of water somewhere in the ocean and hoping someone finds it.......

Whoever finds the record is going to be pretty darn confused with all the languages. They should have stuck with just one that would be easy to decipher, like Eubonics.......

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Bzzzttt!

[Norman Bates]

Don’t know. Tell us.

[wastedyears]

Nothing like telling a possibly hostile alien race everything they’d need to know about our species and planet.

[Nowhere Man]

Surveyor?

[cerberus]

Intriguing slide show!

[Dallas59]

Apparently they encountered The Planet Obammy and we were invaded. OBEY!

[Lancey Howard]

LOL, what are the odds that any extraterrestrial “life” would share any human senses such as sight, hearing, or touch, let alone the human conceptions of space and time? I cannot imagine anything more vain than this “time capsule”. Copernicus must be laughing in his grave.

Lancey, the Blasphemer

[SFConservative]

Mariner 11 and 12?

[C19fan]

Actually time and distance is defined in terms of fundamental physical properties. Any advanced intelligence would understand the same properties.

[The Great RJ]

I am sure some extraterrestrials finding this gold record will laugh at the primitive technology ....I'm certain they will have evolved beyond MP3 players centuries ago.

[Dallas59]

What if they’re deaf and can only see in the infrared...Or eat gold?

[Smokin' Joe]

I am sure some extraterrestrials finding this gold record will laugh at the primitive technology

"Look Mozod, more gold!"

"Yeah, yeah, throw it in the scrap bin willya? Cheap junk..."

[6SJ7]

I am sure some extraterrestrials finding this gold record will laugh at the primitive technology...

Somewhere, in another part of the universe, an alien is digging the equivalent of a Thorens turntable out of an alien attic.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Close...originally “Mariner Jupiter Saturn”