Read
more about the Golden Record Cover
(Click on the image for a larger view)
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.”
Information
About the Earth and Its Inhabitants Included on the Record
Want to know more about Voyager's record?
The
definitive work about the Voyager record is "Murmurs of
Earth" by Executive Director, Carl Sagan, Technical Director,
Frank Drake, Creative Director, Ann Druyan, Producer, Timothy
Ferris, Designer, Jon Lomberg, and Greetings Organizer,
Linda Salzman. Basically, this book is the story behind
the creation of the record, and includes a full list of
everything on the record. "Murmurs of Earth", originally
published in 1978, was reissued in 1992 by Warner News Media
with a CD-ROM that replicates the Voyager record. Unfortunately,
this book is now out of print, but it is worth the effort
to try and find a used copy or browse through a library
copy.