📷 A gold record in its cover, attached to a Voyager space probe, USA, circa 1977.
The Voyager Golden Records were a pair of phonograph records, plated in gold and attached to the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft, designed to carry a message from Earth into interstellar space. They were humanity’s most elaborate attempt to communicate with potential extraterrestrial life, containing sounds, music, images, and greetings representing life on our planet. The records were built to last billions of years in space, made of gold-plated copper and encased in aluminum covers for protection. They were launched in 1977, powered by the Voyager mission’s goal to explore the outer planets and beyond, with each record capable of storing 90 minutes of audio per side plus encoded images.
Each record was 30.5 centimeters (12 inches) in diameter, about the size of a large dinner plate, and weighed 0.7 kilograms (1.5 pounds) with its cover, roughly the weight of a small laptop. The Voyager spacecraft, carrying the records, generated a modest 470 watts of power at launch—less than a microwave—but their journey relied on gravity assists from Jupiter and Saturn to reach speeds of 61,000 kilometers per hour (38,000 miles per hour), fast enough to escape the solar system.
The records could store 115 images and over two hours of sound, a payload of data equivalent to a modern USB drive but etched in analog form. They included a cartridge and stylus, with instructions to play them at 16⅔ revolutions per minute—slower than a standard LP.
The person most associated with the records is Carl Sagan. Carl Sagan was an American astronomer, author, and science communicator who played a leading role in advancing humanity’s outreach to the cosmos. He was also a controversial figure for his optimism about extraterrestrial life, which some scientists criticized as speculative. He co-created the Pioneer Plaques, simpler messages sent on the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft in 1972-73, during his time as a professor at Cornell University. These earlier efforts inspired his leadership of the Voyager Records project, where he assembled a team to curate Earth’s story in just six months. He became a global icon through his book Cosmos and its 1980 TV series, amplifying the records’ message. The Voyager Golden Records were launched aboard Voyager 1 and 2, which explored Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and became the first human-made objects to enter interstellar space—Voyager 1 in 2012, Voyager 2 in 2018—carrying humanity’s voice into the galaxy.
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