Imagine trying to communicate with another being that cannot read our language or even speak it. How would you be able to tell them about our world?
The Voyager Golden Record was a solution for that dilemma, creating an attempt at communicating with extraterrestrials. It is a pair of phonograph records that were included in both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977.
These particular phonograph records (remember, they were launched before CDs or even cassettes) are 12-inch gold-plated copper discs which contains sounds and images to portray the diversity of life and culture on earth.
The records, one that travelled on Voyager 1 and the second on Voyager 2, have a drawing that indicates how to use them and make them work, as well as a stylus. The Golden Record also contains photographs, greetings in about 55 different languages, along with a 12 minute montage of sounds on Earth, and 90 minutes of music.
This golden record is designed to stay intact for 1 billion years.
Voyager 1 was sent out on its mission on September 5, 1977, passed the orbit of Pluto in 1990 and left the solar system in November 2004, and it is now in Kuiper Belt.
Voyager 2 entered interstellar space in November 2018. It is scheduled to come back online this month (https://rb.gy/gqgnp9).
Replicas of the Golden Record are available through Ozmo Records with lots of additional information for human enjoyment (https://rb.gy/x0nt2z).