Voyager’s Golden Record

The Golden Record is an icon of the space age, designed as a time capsule for all of life on Earth in the hope that, one day, intelligent beings will find it, and play it. The phonographs contain etchings of radio waves and the structure of DNA; photographs of maps and classrooms, crocodiles and skyscrapers; music from around the world, spoken greetings in numerous languages, and the Earth sounds of laughter and whalesong.In 1977, Voyagers 1 and 2 were launched into space. Since they left Earth, the probes have travelled billions of miles, the only human-made objects to have entered interstellar space. And with each of them, speeding ever farther from our world, is a copy of The Golden Record.Jon Lomberg, the design director of the Golden Records, NASA historian Glen Swanson, and space anthropologist Deana Weibel offer a record of the Golden Record: a first-hand account of its making, and humanity's enduring ambition to converse with the cosmos.