

In 1977, NASA launched two spacecraft, Voyager I and II, on a grand tour of the solar system and beyond, into the mysteries of interstellar space. Attached to the side of each of these spacecraft is a unique golden phonograph record: an interstellar message-in-a-bottle to introduce our civilization to extraterrestrials who might find one of the probes, perhaps billions of years from now. Dozens of sounds of our planet - children laughing, trains, birds, an EKG of a woman in love - are collaged into a singular audio poem called Sounds of Earth. Like a cultural time capsule, there are spoken greetings in 55 human languages, one whale language, and hundreds of images encoded in analog that depict who, and what, we are.
Voyager I entered interstellar space in 2013. It’s 13 billion miles away from Earth, and in 40,000 years it will be within 2 light years of a star in the constellation of Camelopardalis. Etched on the record’s gold-plated jacket is a diagram explaining where it came from, and how to play it.
"TO THE MAKERS OF MUSIC. ALL WORLDS. ALL TIMES." - CARL SAGAN