Space Topics: Voyager
The Golden Record
On board each Voyager spacecraft is a time capsule: a 12-inch, gold-plated
copper disk carrying spoken greetings in 55 languages from Earth’s peoples,
along with 115 images and myriad sounds representing our home planet. Selected
for NASA by Carl Sagan and others, and produced by science writer Timothy
Ferris, the disks are essentially a “greatest hits” package portraying
the biodiversity of Earth and the diversity of human cultures.
From the Golden Gate to the Great Wall, Beethoven to Chuck Berry, from mountain
breezes to crashing surf, a dog’s howl and a baby’s cry, the disks
may someday serve as “letters of introduction” to a passing extraterrestrial
civilization that may stop and inspect the robots and become inquisitive about
their place of origin.
The definitive work about the Voyager record is Murmurs of Earth by
Sagan, Drake, Lomberg, et.al. Originally published in 1978, it was reissued
in 1992 by Warner News Media and includes a CD-ROM that replicates the Voyager
record. Unfortunately, this book is now out of print.
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