The Voyager Golden Record contains 116 images and a variety of sounds. The items for the record, which is carried on both the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft, were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University. Included are natural sounds (including some made by animals), musical selections from different cultures and eras, spoken greetings in 59 languages,[1][2] human sounds like footsteps and laughter,[3] and printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.
The second audio section ("Greetings in 55 Languages") contains spoken greetings in 55 languages.[4] The original plan was to use greetings made by United Nations delegates, but various problems with these recordings led to new recordings being made at Cornell University by people from the foreign-language departments.[5] The number of native speakers of these 55 languages combined (excluding L2 speakers) is over 4.7 billion people, comprising over 65% of the world population. It includes four Chinese languages (marked with **), 12 South Asian languages (marked #) and five ancient languages (marked §), listed here in alphabetical order:
السلام عليکم ـ ہم زمين کے رہنے والوں کى طرف سے آپ کو خوش آمديد کہتے ھيںAssalamu alaikum. Hum zameen ke rehne waalon ki taraf se aap ko khush aamdeed kehte hain.
Peace on you. We the inhabitants of this earth send our greetings to you
Пересилаємо привіт із нашого світу, бажаємо щастя, здоров'я і многая літа (Peresylayemo pryvit iz nashoho svitu, bazhayemo shchastya, zdorov'ya i mnohaya lita)
We are sending greetings from our world, wishing you happiness, health and many years
नमस्कार. ह्या पृथ्वीतील लोक तुम्हाला त्यांचे शुभविचार पाठवतात आणि त्यांची इच्छा आहे की तुम्ही ह्या जन्मी धन्य व्हा. (Namaskāra. Hyā pr̥thvītīla lōka tumhālā tyān̄cē śubhavicāra pāṭhavatāta āṇi tyān̄cī icchā āhē kī tumhī hyā janmī dhan'ya vhā.)
Greetings. The people of the Earth send their good wishes and hope you find good fortune in this life.
Included within the Sounds of Earth audio portion of the Golden Record is a track containing the inspirational message per aspera ad astra in Morse code. Translated from Latin, it means 'through hardships to the stars.'
Brainwaves
The life signs included on the record were an hour-long recording of the heartbeat and brainwaves of Ann Druyan, who would later marry Carl Sagan. The hour-long recording was compressed into the span of a minute to be able to fit into the essay.[9] In the epilogue of the 1997 book Billions and Billions, she describes the experience:
Earlier I had asked Carl if those putative extraterrestrials of a billion years from now could conceivably interpret the brain waves of a meditator. Who knows? A billion years is a long, long time, was his reply. On the chance that it might be possible why don't we give it a try? Two days after our life-changing phone call, I entered a laboratory at Bellevue Hospital in New York City and was hooked up to a computer that turned all the data from my brain and heart into sound. I had a one-hour mental itinerary of the information I wished to convey. I began by thinking about the history of Earth and the life it sustains. To the best of my abilities I tried to think something of the history of ideas and human social organization. I thought about the predicament that our civilization finds itself in and about the violence and poverty that make this planet a hell for so many of its inhabitants. Toward the end I permitted myself a personal statement of what it was like to fall in love.[10]
On February 12, 2010, an interview with Ann Druyan was aired on NPR during which the above was explained in more detail.[11]
Music
Following the section on the sounds of Earth, there is an eclectic 90-minute selection of music from many cultures, including Eastern and Western classics. The selections include:[12]
Georgian State Merited Ensemble of Folk Song and Dance/Anzor Kavsadze (director) featuring Ilia Zakaidze (first tenor) and Rostom Saginashvili (second tenor)[15][16][self-published source]
It has been claimed that Sagan had originally asked for permission to include "Here Comes the Sun" from the Beatles' album Abbey Road; but while the Beatles favored it, EMI opposed it and the song was not included.[7] However, this has been refuted by Timothy Ferris, who worked on the selection with Sagan; he said the song was never even considered for inclusion.[13]
Images
Along with the audio, the record contains a collection of 116 pictures (one of which is for calibration) detailing but not limited to human life on Earth and the planet itself. Many pictures are annotated with one or many indications of scales of time, size or mass. Some images also contain indications of chemical composition. All measures used on the pictures are first defined in the first few images using physical references.
Following is a list of all the images contained in the Voyager Golden Record together with a description of the nature of the image and what annotations were included in them, and when copyright permits, the actual image.[17]
After NASA had received criticism over the nudity on the Pioneer plaque (line drawings of a naked man and woman), the agency chose not to allow Sagan and his colleagues to include George Hester's photograph of a nude man and woman on the record.[18] Instead, only a silhouette of the couple was included.[19]
An official statement by President Jimmy Carter was included as images (positions 117, 118). It reads, in part:
This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a global civilization. We cast this message into the cosmos... It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some– perhaps many– may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe.[20][21]
Ann Druyan is an American documentary producer and director specializing in the communication of science. She co-wrote the 1980 PBS documentary series Cosmos, hosted by Carl Sagan, whom she married in 1981. She is the creator, producer, and writer of the 2014 sequel, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey and its sequel series, Cosmos: Possible Worlds, as well as the book of the same name. She directed episodes of both series.
Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by exposure to light. He assembled the first physical messages sent into space, the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, which were universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them. He argued in favor of the hypothesis, which has since been accepted, that the high surface temperatures of Venus are the result of the greenhouse effect.
Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System and the interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. It was launched 16 days after its twin, Voyager 2. It communicates through the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) to receive routine commands and to transmit data to Earth. Real-time distance and velocity data are provided by NASA and JPL. At a distance of 166.28 AU from Earth as of December 2024, it is the most distant human-made object from Earth. The probe made flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, and Saturn's largest moon, Titan. NASA had a choice of either doing a Pluto or Titan flyby; exploration of the moon took priority because it was known to have a substantial atmosphere. Voyager 1 studied the weather, magnetic fields, and rings of the two gas giants and was the first probe to provide detailed images of their moons.
Voyager 2 is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, as a part of the Voyager program. It was launched on a trajectory towards the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn and enabled further encounters with the ice giants Uranus and Neptune. It remains the only spacecraft to have visited either of the ice giant planets, and was the third of five spacecraft to achieve Solar escape velocity, which allowed it to leave the Solar System. Launched 16 days before its twin Voyager 1, the primary mission of the spacecraft was to study the outer planets and its extended mission is to study interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere.
The Voyager program is an American scientific program that employs two interstellar probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable planetary alignment to explore the two gas giants Jupiter and Saturn and potentially also the ice giants, Uranus and Neptune - to fly near them while collecting data for transmission back to Earth. After Voyager 1 successfully completed its flyby of Saturn and its moon Titan, it was decided to send Voyager 2 on flybys of Uranus and Neptune.
Frank Donald Drake was an American astrophysicist and astrobiologist.
The Voyager Golden Records are two identical phonograph records which were included aboard the two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. The records contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form who may find them. The records are a time capsule.
The Pioneer plaques are a pair of gold-anodized aluminum plaques that were placed on board the 1972 Pioneer 10 and 1973 Pioneer 11 spacecraft, featuring a pictorial message, in case either Pioneer 10 or 11 is intercepted by intelligent extraterrestrial life. The plaques show the nude figures of a human male and female along with several symbols that are designed to provide information about the origin of the spacecraft.
Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 space probe from an unprecedented distance of approximately 6 billion kilometers, as part of that day's Family Portrait series of images of the Solar System.
Nicholas Julian Zapata Sagan is an American novelist and screenwriter. He is the author of the science fiction novels Idlewild, Edenborn, and Everfree, and has also written scripts for episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager. He is the son of astronomer Carl Sagan and artist and writer Linda Salzman.
Carolyn C. Porco is an American planetary scientist who explores the outer Solar System, beginning with her imaging work on the Voyager missions to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in the 1980s. She led the imaging science team on the Cassini mission in orbit around Saturn. She is an expert on planetary rings and the Saturnian moon, Enceladus.
Timothy Ferris is an American science writer and the best-selling author of twelve books, including The Science of Liberty (2010) and Coming of Age in the Milky Way (1988), for which he was awarded the American Institute of Physics Prize and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. He also wrote The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report (1997), a popular science book on the study of the universe. Ferris has produced three PBS documentaries: The Creation of the Universe, Life Beyond Earth, and Seeing in the Dark.
The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective is a book by the astronomer Carl Sagan, produced by Jerome Agel. It was originally published in 1973; an expanded edition with contributions from Freeman Dyson, David Morrison, and Ann Druyan was published in 2000 under the title Carl Sagan's Cosmic Connection. The book contains artwork by Jon Lomberg and other artists. The book was listed as number thirteen in a list of the "25 Greatest Science Books of All Time" by Discover Magazine in 2006.
Valya Mladenova Balkanska is a Bulgarian folk music singer from the Rhodope Mountains known locally for her wide repertoire of Balkan folk songs, but in the West mainly for singing the song "Izlel ye Delyo Haydutin", part of the Voyager Golden Record selection of music included in the two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977.
The Family Portrait, or sometimes Portrait of the Planets, is an image of the Solar System acquired by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990, from a distance of approximately 6 billion km from Earth. It features individual frames of six planets and a partial background indicating their relative positions. The picture is a mosaic of 60 frames. The frames used to compose the image were the last photographs taken by either Voyager spacecraft. The frames were also the source of the famous Pale Blue Dot image of the Earth. Astronomer Carl Sagan, who was part of the Voyager imaging team, campaigned for many years to have the pictures taken.
Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space is a 1994 book by the astronomer Carl Sagan. It is the sequel to Sagan's 1980 book Cosmos and was inspired by the famous 1990 Pale Blue Dot photograph, for which Sagan provides a poignant description. In the book, Sagan mixes philosophy about the human place in the universe with a description of the current knowledge about the Solar System. He also details a human vision for the future.
Jon Lomberg is an American space artist and science journalist. He was Carl Sagan's principal artistic collaborator for more than twenty years on many projects from 1972 through 1996. In 1998, the International Astronomical Union officially named an asteroid in recognition of his achievements in science communication. He was NASA's Design Director for the Golden Record on the Voyager spacecraft; the cover he designed is expected to last at least a billion years.
"Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" is a gospel blues song written and performed by American musician Blind Willie Johnson and recorded in 1927. The song is primarily an instrumental featuring Johnson's self-taught bottleneck slide guitar and picking style accompanied by his vocalizations of humming and moaning. It has the distinction of being one of 27 samples of music included on the Voyager Golden Record, launched into space in 1977 to represent the diversity of life on Earth. The song has been highly praised and covered by numerous musicians and is featured on the soundtracks of several films.
"Unafraid of the Dark" is the thirteenth and final episode of the American documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey and its series finale. It premiered on June 8, 2014, on Fox and aired on June 9, 2014, on the National Geographic Channel. The episode was written by Ann Druyan and Steven Soter, and directed by Ann Druyan, making this her series directorial debut. The episode explores the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter, as well as the contributions and theories of Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky, who furthered our understanding of "supernovae, neutron stars and 'standard candles.'" The finale reveals a recording of life on Earth - the final message on the golden record of the space probe, Voyager. The episode ends with Carl Sagan's iconic speech on Earth as the "Pale Blue Dot."
Music in space is music played in or broadcast from a spacecraft in outer space. The first ever song that was performed in space was a Ukrainian song “Watching the sky...”(“Дивлюсь я на небо”) sang on 12 August 1962 by Pavlo Popovych, cosmonaut from Ukraine at a special request of Serhiy Korolyov, Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer from Ukraine. According to the Smithsonian Institution, the first musical instruments played in outer space were an 8-note Hohner "Little Lady" harmonica and a handful of small bells carried by American astronauts Wally Schirra and Thomas P. Stafford aboard Gemini 6A. Upon achieving a space rendezvous in Earth orbit with their sister ship Gemini 7 in December 1965, Schirra and Stafford played a rendition of "Jingle Bells" over the radio after jokingly claiming to have seen an unidentified flying object piloted by Santa Claus. The instruments had been smuggled on-board without NASA's knowledge, leading Mission Control director Elliot See to exclaim "You're too much" to Schirra after the song. The harmonica was donated to the Smithsonian by Schirra in 1967, with his note that it "...plays quite well".
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