The “Golden Record” is a two-sided, gold-plated, copper LP attached to the Voyager I and II spacecrafts, one on each. Launched in 1977, the Voyager probes are now 10 billion miles away, the farthest human-made objects from Earth.
Astronomer Carl Sagan oversaw the committee that assembled the music, sounds, and images that were inscribed on the disks.
(A cartridge with stylus were also attached to the spacecraft, so that aliens, when they find it, will be able to play the record.)
Included on the record are:
- A greeting, in English, from then-Secretary General of the UN
- “Hello” in 55 languages
- Sounds of the Earth, including sounds from nature, people at work, and a mother kissing a child
- 27 tracks of music, including a wide range of songs and music from around the world
- 116 images
- and a one-hour recording of brainwaves and heartbeats from Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan’s fiancee
Ms. Druyan explains the last:
“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.”
Here’s track 31 of 31: The Cavatina Movement from String Quartet No. 13 In B Flat, Opus 130, by Ludwig van Beethoven.