#The staurn golden records how to

This kind of disc is not something you could buy commercially at a record store.'Īnd besides, Voyager's Golden Record has thus far been kept safe from the elements-high temperatures, oxygen, water-known to deteriorate Earthly records. 'I believe they were designed to last for a very, very long time and so should still be playable. 'The gold records that were launched into space were specially constructed discs for the purposes of space travel,' said Peter Alyea, a digital conservation specialist at the Library of Congress who specializes in audio recordings.

#The staurn golden records how to

What about a pair of 40-year-old records careening through outer space? Even if extraterrestrials found and figured out how to work the Golden Record, would it play anymore? They offer what we have, and what we are, up to the cosmos.īut what if the improbable were to happen? Here on Earth, 10-year-old CDs are puttering out. carry the transcendent aspects of human existence: the art, the beauty, the ache, the joy. The record's case is etched with images explaining how to play it. The gold-plated copper disc features a rather romantic sampling of Earthly sounds-the music of Igor Stravinksy and Chuck Berry, human greetings in dozens of languages, the staccato of an infant's cry, an urgent train whistle, choruses of crickets, and a whale's ethereal song. That was the idea, anyway, behind the Golden Record, copies of which were placed aboard both Voyager 1 and its predecessor, Voyager 2, which was launched first but on a slower trajectory. And even when its last instruments power down in 2025, the spacecraft will continue to carry one of humanity's greatest hopes: the prospect of communicating with intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Yet all these years later, from a galactic vantage point that seems impossibly far away, Voyager is still sending data back to scientists on Earth. 'I'd say it's as fresh and new as the day it was placed aboard the spacecraft.'

Today it is more than 11 billion miles from home, a distance equivalent to nearly half a million trips around the planet Earth. Since its launch 37 years ago this month, the spacecraft has become humankind's farthest flung object. Voyager is moving away from our sun at a clip of nearly 1 million miles a day. You can actually watch this happen, in a way, on NASA's website, which tracks the probe's distance from our planet with a meter that's constantly counting up.

If your budget is too tight but you still want to help, please Like, Share and/or leave us a good review.With every second that ticks past, the spacecraft Voyager 1 ventures farther away from Earth. If you liked what you heard and can afford to help us grow, please throw a couple bucks our way. If your budget is too tight but you still want to help, please Like, Share and/or leave us a good review. These were the questions that faced Carl Sagan and his associates in the 1970s.Ġ8:44 'What would you choose?'/ The Ultimate Time Capsuleġ1:39 The Golden Records/ Sounds and Imagesġ6:30 'How 'bout no.?'/ Galactic Identity FraudĢ0:18 Will we still be here when it's found? What images, sounds, and media would you pick and why? Furthermore, how would those choices be interpreted by intelligent extraterrestrial life? What if you were asked to compile all relevant cultural examples of humanity and then put it in a sort of satellite-time-capsule and then shoot it off into the far regions of space?