Aboard each of the Voyager space probes was a very special message: a message to other worlds. The Golden Record(s) are a message to any alien species who may find the relic of either of the Voyager spacecraft
Each
vessel carried a
disc of information that came to be known as The Golden Record(s).
These records contained much more information then The Arecibo message and the small plates that accompanied Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11. A committee chaired by SETI fanatic and brilliant astrophysicist Carl Sagan selected the Golden Record contents for NASA. There is an amazing amount of information on the record, which includes:
- 115 images in analog form
- many sounds of nature
- musical selections from different cultures and eras
- spoken greetings from Earth-people in fifty-five languages
Each record is encased in a protective aluminum jacket, together with a cartridge and a needle to play them.
The cover of the record is perhaps the most impressive. It is the key to using and understanding the information. The cover of the Golden Records tells:
- How to play the record
- How to get images from the record
- Where our solar system is, mapped from several known pulsars
- The length of 1 second
To see an explanation of the entire cover, go to {http://vraptor.jpl.nasa.gov/voyager/messages/VgrCover.jpg}