ITHACA, New York, Aug. 5 — A 12-inch disc made of gold-plated copper is carrying the story of Earth to whoever, or whatever, might be out there to find it.
The Voyager Golden Record, riding aboard both the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft, was built as a message in the most literal sense: a phonograph record intended to communicate the story of our planet to extraterrestrials. Its contents were chosen with evident care to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth — not one voice, but many.
The selection was deliberate. A committee chaired by astronomer Carl Sagan of Cornell University made the choices, and the range of what made the cut says something about how we wanted to be understood.
What the record carries
The disc holds 115 images, encoded in analog form. They depict mathematical and physical quantities, the solar system, the structure of DNA, human anatomy, and scenes from cultures across the planet. It is, in a sense, a visual introduction to who we are and what we know.
The audio portion is just as wide-ranging. There are greetings spoken in 55 languages, and music from different eras and regions — including Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 and Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” Natural sounds are there too: thunder, birdsong, whale calls. The record also carries spoken messages from then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.
What is striking is the balance. This is not a single anthem or a single statement; it is a sampling of the planet’s mathematics, its biology and its noise.
Built to be found
The Golden Record is encased in a protective aluminum jacket and includes a stylus and cartridge for playback — a small courtesy for whoever might one day retrieve it. Instructions for decoding the record are etched onto the jacket in symbolic form, including a map to Earth’s location relative to 14 pulsars, so that its origin can be traced.
The encouraging part is the durability. The record is expected to last billions of years, far outlasting the spacecraft that carry it. Even after the Voyagers themselves fall silent, the message may remain — still carrying its images of DNA and anatomy, its greetings in 55 languages, its thunder and birdsong and whale calls.
For now, the record continues on its journey, and the conversation it started remains open. The hope, carefully placed in a gold-plated disc, is that someone will eventually play it.
Sources
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