Contents of the Voyager Golden Record
The contents of the Voyager Golden Record is a collection of 116 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs of birds and whales. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, spoken greetings in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim. The items were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University.
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 a photograph of a nude man and woman on the record. Instead, only a silhouette of the couple was included.[1]
Here is an excerpt of President Carter's official statement placed on the Voyager spacecraft for its trip outside our solar system, June 16, 1977:
We cast this message into the cosmos ... 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: We are trying 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.
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[edit] Greetings
The first audio section contains spoken greetings in the following 55 languages,[2] including 4 Chinese dialects (marked with **), 12 South Asian languages (marked #) and 5 ancient languages (marked §) listed here in alphabetical order:
This is a list of the recorded greetings as they appear on the track[3]:
[edit] Sounds
The next audio section is devoted to the "sounds of Earth" that include[4]:
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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.
[edit] 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:
- Johann Sebastian Bach is the most represented artist, appearing three times, and, with the addition of two pieces by Beethoven, make Germany the most represented country with six appearances, followed by the United States.
Sagan had originally asked for permission to include "Here Comes the Sun" from the Beatles' album Abbey Road. While the Beatles favoured it, EMI opposed it and the song was not included.[5]
[edit] Brainwaves
The Golden Records also carried an hour long recording of the brainwaves of Ann Druyan, who would later marry Carl Sagan. In the Epilogue of the 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.[6]
On February 12, 2010, an interview with Ann Druyan was aired on National Public Radio (NPR) during which the above was explained in more detail.[7]
[edit] 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, when copyright permits, the actual image, a description of the nature of the image and what annotations were included in them.[8]
Position | Thumbnail | Description | Type | Annotations |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Calibration circle | Black and white diagram | ||
2 | Solar location map | Black and white diagram | ||
3 | Mathematical definitions | Black and white text | ||
4 | Physical unit definitions | Black and white text | ||
5 | Solar system parameters | Black and white text | ||
6 | Solar system parameters | Black and white text | ||
7 | The Sun | Black and white image | ||
8 | Solar spectrum | Color image | ||
9 | Mercury | Black and white image | ||
10 | Mars | Black and white image | Size | |
11 | Jupiter | Color image | Size | |
12 | Earth | Color image | Size | |
13 | Egypt, Red Sea, Sinai Peninsula and the Nile | Color image | Chemical composition | |
14 | Chemical definitions | Color diagram | Size | |
15 | DNA Structure | Color diagram | Size | |
16 | DNA Structure magnified, light hit | Color diagram | Size | |
17 | Cells and cell division | Black and white image | Size | |
18 | Anatomy 1 (Skeleton front) | Color diagram | ||
19 | Anatomy 2 (Internal organs front) | Color diagram | ||
20 | Anatomy 3 (Skeleton and muscles back) | Color diagram | ||
21 | Anatomy 4 (Internal organs back) | Color diagram | ||
22 | Anatomy 5 (Ribcage) | Color diagram | ||
23 | Anatomy 6 (Muscles front) | Color diagram | Size | |
24 | Anatomy 7 (Heart, lungs, Kidneys and main blood vessels back) | Color diagram | ||
25 | Anatomy 8 (Heart, lungs, Kidneys and main blood vessels front) | Color diagram | ||
26 | Human sex organs | Black and white diagram | Size | |
27 | Diagram of conception | Black and white diagram | Size, time | |
28 | Conception | Color image | ||
29 | Fertilized ovum | Black and white image | Time | |
30 | Fetus diagram | Black and white diagram | Size, time | |
31 | Fetus | Color image | ||
32 | Diagram of male and female | Black and white diagram | Size, time | |
33 | Birth | Black and white image | ||
34 | Nursing mother | Color image | ||
35 | Father and daughter (Malaysia) | Color image | ||
36 | Group of children | Color image | ||
37 | Diagram of family ages | Black and white diagram | Mass, time | |
38 | Family portrait | Black and white image | ||
39 | Diagram of continental drift | Black and white diagram | Time | |
40 | Structure of the Earth | Black and white diagram | Size, chemical composition | |
41 | Heron Island (Great Barrier Reef of Australia) | Color image | ||
42 | Seashore | Color image | ||
43 | Snake River and Grand Tetons | Black and white image | ||
44 | Sand dunes | Color image | ||
45 | Monument Valley | Color image | ||
46 | Forest scene with mushrooms | Color image | ||
47 | Leaf | Color image | Size | |
48 | Autumn Fallen leaves | Color image | ||
49 | Snowflakes over Sequoia[disambiguation needed] | Color image | ||
50 | Tree with daffodils | Color image | Size | |
51 | Flying insect with flowers | Color image | ||
52 | Diagram of vertebrate evolution | Black and white diagram | ||
53 | Seashell (Xancidae) | Color image | ||
54 | Dolphins | Color image | ||
55 | School of fish | Color image | ||
56 | Tree toad | Color image | ||
57 | Crocodile | Color image | ||
58 | Eagle | Color image | Size | |
59 | Waterhole | Color image | ||
60 | Jane Goodall and chimps | Color image | ||
61 | Sketch of bushmen | Black and white diagram | Size | |
62 | Bushmen hunters | Black and white image | ||
63 | Man from Guatemala | Color image | ||
64 | Dancer from Bali | Color image | ||
65 | Andean girls | Color image | ||
66 | Thailand master craftsman | Color image | ||
67 | Elephant | Color image | ||
68 | Old man with beard and glasses (Turkey) | Color image | ||
69 | Old man with dog and flowers | Color image | ||
70 | Mountain climber | Color image | ||
71 | Gymnast | Color image | Time | |
72 | Sprinters (Valeriy Borzov of the U.S.S.R. in lead) | Color image | ||
73 | Schoolroom | Color image | ||
74 | Children with globe | Color image | ||
75 | Cotton harvest | Color image | ||
76 | Grape picker | Color image | ||
77 | Supermarket | Color image | ||
78 | Underwater scene with diver and fish | Color image | Chemical composition | |
79 | Fishing boat with nets | Color image | ||
80 | Cooking fish | Color image | ||
81 | Chinese dinner party | Color image | ||
82 | Demonstration of licking, eating and drinking | Color image | ||
83 | Great Wall of China | Color image | ||
84 | House construction (African) | Color image | ||
85 | Construction scene (Amish country) | Color image | ||
86 | House (Africa) | Color image | ||
87 | House (New England) | Color image | ||
88 | Modern house (Cloudcroft, New Mexico) | Color image | ||
89 | House interior with artist and fire | Color image | ||
90 | Taj Mahal | Color image | ||
91 | English city (Oxford) | Color image | ||
92 | Boston | Color image | ||
93 | UN Building Day | Color image | ||
94 | UN Building Night | Color image | ||
95 | Sydney Opera House | Color image | Size | |
96 | Artisan with drill | Black and white image | ||
97 | Factory interior | Color image | ||
98 | Museum | Color image | ||
99 | X-ray of hand | Color image | ||
100 | Woman with microscope | Color image | ||
101 | Street scene, Asia (Pakistan) | Color image | ||
102 | Rush hour traffic, India | Color image | ||
103 | Modern highway (Ithaca, NY) | Color image | ||
104 | Golden Gate Bridge | Black and white image | Size | |
105 | Train | Color image | Size | |
106 | Airplane in flight | Color image | ||
107 | Airport (Toronto) | Black and white image | ||
108 | Antarctic Expedition | Color image | ||
109 | Radio telescope (Westerbork, Netherlands) | Black and white image | ||
110 | Radio telescope (Arecibo) | Color image | Size | |
111 | Page of book (Newton, System of the World) | Color image | ||
112 | Astronaut in space | Color image | ||
113 | Titan Centaur launch | Color image | ||
114 | Sunset with birds | Color image | ||
115 | String Quartet (Quartetto Italiano) | Color image | ||
116 | Violin with music score (Cavatina) | Color image |
[edit] See also
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Image for Voyager Golden Record |
[edit] References
- ^ Jon Lomberg: "Pictures of Earth". in Carl Sagan: Murmurs of Earth, 1978, New York, ISBN 0-679-74444-4
- ^ "Greetings to the Universe in 55 Different Languages". NASA. http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/languages/languages.html. Retrieved September 6, 2006.
- ^ "Voyager: Greetings in 55 languages". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTDK2jCVPN0. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
- ^ "Voyager - Spacecraft - Golden Record - Sounds of Earth". NASA. http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/sounds.html. Retrieved August 17, 2008.
- ^ Sagan, Carl et al. (1978) Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-394-41047-5 (hardcover), ISBN 0-345-28396-1 (paperback)
- ^ Sagan, Carl (1997). Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium. Random House. ISBN 0-679-41160-7.
- ^ Carl Sagan And Ann Druyan's Ultimate Mix Tape
- ^ "Greetings to the Universe in 55 Different Languages". NASA. http://goldenrecord.org. Retrieved May 26, 2010.
[edit] External links
- Official NASA JPL page about the Golden Record
- Multimedia showcase with the contents of the Golden Record
- Web site with all of the images, languages, and sounds on the Record.
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