Voyager Golden Record

A pair of gold-plated copper phonograph records launched aboard Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 in 1977. Their encoded sounds, images, and greetings were assembled as a message about life on Earth for any extraterrestrial discoverer.

Phonograph record: An analog sound-storage medium that represents audio as grooves read by a stylus. The Golden Record uses this familiar physical format to encode audio.
Sounds of Earth: A collection of natural and human-made recordings included on the Voyager Golden Record. It presents Earth through environmental sounds, from wind and thunder to human activity.
Carl Sagan: An American astronomer and science communicator who led the committee that assembled the Voyager Golden Record. He proposed an interstellar message and guided the record’s creation.
Active SETI: The deliberate transmission of messages from Earth intended for extraterrestrial civilizations. The Golden Record is a physical message carried outward, though it was not broadcast toward a target.
Pulsar map: A diagram locating the Sun relative to fourteen pulsars, identified by their pulse periods. Its cover uses pulsar directions and timing to indicate Earth’s location.
Greetings from Earth: Spoken greetings in 55 languages, recorded for the Voyager Golden Record. These voices make linguistic diversity one of the record’s most direct human messages.
Ann Druyan: An American writer and producer who served as creative director of the Voyager Golden Record project. She helped shape its contents and selected the brain-wave recording.
Pioneer plaque: An engraved metal plaque on Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 depicting humans and the spacecraft’s origin. It is an earlier, more compact attempt to identify Earth and its inhabitants.
Hydrogen line: The 21-centimeter radio emission produced by neutral hydrogen’s hyperfine transition. The cover’s timing diagram uses this transition as a universal unit.
Voyager Golden Record music: Twenty-seven musical selections from different cultures and eras included on the Voyager Golden Record. The music section presents varied traditions as a sample of human expression.

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