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I have now inverted the image of the disc so that it matches the diagram below. - Lee M 14:21, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
The replacement image was in turn replaced by a thumbnail that linked to a bigger image - but upside down once more. I took the right-side-up version, created a new thumbnail from it and replaced the previous versions with them. Phew. So now everything matches the diagram, although it would be better to have a full-size picture of the record adjacent to the full-size diagram, or alternatively to superimpose the diagram key onto the full-size image. Lee M 23:24, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Are the captions for the images of the record and its cover swapped? -
Arteitle 10:26, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I decided that they were, and fixed them. -
Arteitle 17:26, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Since there is a uranium lining on the record, does this mean it is radioactive and could be harmful for use? Let's say a human were to find the record and touch it and such, would they suffer from radiation poisoning? 76.116.109.221 ( talk) 23:16, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Not at all, natural uranium is barely radioactive (unlike enriched uranium) and therefore perfectly safe to touch with your bare hands. 76.21.37.87 ( talk) 00:36, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
The decay of Uranium-238 gives alpha particle. This particle has low penetrative power. It can be block by a sheet of paper or your skin, thus it can't harm you. Furthermore, the concentration used is very low. 192.218.160.13 ( talk) 08:11, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Originally based on public domain text from the NASA Website ( http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/goldenrec.html), where selected images and sounds from the record can be found. Much of the Voyager records, however, is only available in compiled form to extraterrestrials for copyright reasons.
What does this mean? Gaurav 15:13, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
A weak joke, one assumes? Richard W.M. Jones 18:35, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Carl Sagan and his colleagues did the assemblage of the information on the Voyager Golden Phonograph Record. Most of the material they used was copyrighted by the creators/owners and Sagan had to get copyright releases in order to assemble the original record. Subsequently, Warner Multimedia was able to obtain copyright releases for the 1992 version of "Murmurs of Earth", by Carl Sagan, et al and included all the sounds and songs on the CDROM set that accompanied the Warner New Media release of the book. We have included on the Voyager web site ( http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov) only that information for which we were able to get release, that's why everything, especially the music and the photos, is not there.
Unfortunately, the book and CDROM are no longer being published....
I don't think government property/documents can be copyrighted Dudtz 9/8/05 6:26 PM EST
I'm not sure of the truth or falsehood of that statement, but it doesn't matter - the contents of the record aren't government property, they're the property of many many people being used by the government with permission.
The following statement can be found in the article:
"After NASA received much criticism over the "smut" on the Pioneer plaque (the line drawings of a naked man and woman) from the Christian right that objected to "using tax dollars to send pornography into space" they chose not to include anything on the subject of male-female interaction."
However, I have been looking (on the NASA website) at some of the images that were place on the record and they include:
I am therefore not sure that the above statement in correct. Does anybody else have any thoughts/input on this? Cheers TigerShark 09:05, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
From the article:
They will be a mere 2.3 light years away from us. The distance to the next star is 4.3 light years, so they will be not at all "close" to another star. Does anyone know to which star they are approximately travelling?
It's stated in the article.
Stars are not fixed in position. The closest star *at the moment* is 4.3lY away. As it happens, the star that Voyager will make its closest approach to is travelling *towards us* somewhat faster than Voyager is travelling away from us. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
178.15.151.163 (
talk)
13:33, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
I'm quite certain that there's a Star Trek novel in which we discover a similar communication from an ancient civilization and the POV character (Picard, I'm pretty sure) muses about the Voyager Record and reveals that when contact was made with Vulcans, Klingons, etc. their scientists were given copies of the record, and none could make heads or tails of it. Anyone remember this? MBlume 23:04, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
As long as we're talking Star Trek, I removed a reference to Star Trek 5, since the Klingons destroy one of the Pioneer probes, not a Voyager. Besides, this article is about the record, not the Voyagers themselves. CFLeon 21:23, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
This may seem like nitpicking, but should fictional events be referred to in the present or the past tense? The fictional section in this article uses both (in one case, in the same entry, though that's been fixed) - is there Wiki policy on this? MBlume 23:04, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Please remove the irrelevant cartoon picture of Megatron. I'd like to see a picture of what's actually on the album. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.0.54.84 ( talk) 18:39, August 22, 2007 (UTC)
There are two sentences that contradict each other in the article:
"As of 2006, the Voyager spacecraft will be the third and fourth human artifacts to escape entirely from the solar system. Pioneers 10 and 11, which were launched in 1972 and 1973 and preceded Voyager in outstripping the gravitational attraction of the Sun"
"Voyager 1 was launched in 1977, passed the orbit of Pluto in 1990, and left the solar system (in the sense of passing the termination shock) in November 2004."
These two sentences use two different definitions of escape from the solar system. The first sentence uses the term to mean reaching escape velocity (it looks like), and the second one uses the termination shock, which neither Pioneer has passed yet. NHammen 22:24, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
the pioneer solid third stages followed both space craft in there trajectories.pioneer 11 experenced a initual injection aimpoint that would have placed it in a solar orbit but after space craft seperation it was placed on a correct orbit that ended up in a
solar system escape orbit.the pioneer 11 third stage may still be in a solar orbit. pioneer 10 and voyagers 1 and voyagers 2 third stages followed closely out of the solar system. there fore there are 9 objects escaping our solar system pioneer 10 pioneer 10 and its third stage pioneer 11 voyager 1 voyger 1 's third stage voyager 2 voyager 2's third stage new horizen new horizens third stage-- Infocat13 01:27, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
I changed the format of a reference (adding the 'ref' tag). Now all the references are together but they are duplicated! I can't change it back and I can't find what's wrong... polkium 05:29, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Behold the glory of the human race - a cute little record that I'm 100% sure will simply astonish aliens when they happen upon it. I'm sure they'll fall to their knees in worship to our magnificence. And then they'll throw this piece of garbage in the trash where it belongs. What was Sagan thinking? He was more of a madman than a scientist.
It was more a symbolism thing. Who knows what aliens might do with it if they ever find it? Let's say it crash lands, fairly intact, but the creatures on the world it crashes on consumes all the material types of the Voyager. Or the alien's wouldn't even think much of it, there could be lots of differneces in life out there. Try not to assume that they'll throw it in the garbage, if they even know what garbage is...0_o
There's always the chance that no one will ever find it, that one seems a lot more plausible.
If they can see it for what it is, they won't throw it away. I find it more likely that they would just discount it as rubble, though, assuming they find it. Mr.WaeseL 00:57, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
What are the chances of advanced alien life possessing a phonograph record player in 40,000 years time? They will probably just use it as a frisbee, or send a transmission back to us asking "Do you have it on MiniDisc?". If NASA really wants to impress extraterrestrial beings with the extent of human achievement they should send into space a selection of pornographic movies and the first four Danzig albums. DANZIG666 ( talk) 02:48, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I thought this mission had also sent out images encoded into vinyl, namely one of a woman in a supermarket. It looked very 70's era. I used to have the image. Does anyone know of a package like this being sent into space or am I mistaken?
-matt
Is this what you are looking for? http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/sceneearth.html Ap William 07:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I was wondering if there is any information about the total cost of the project.
Is there a reason why gold was chosen instead of some other (possibly more durable) metal?
Is gold known to be durable when facing interstellar hazzards?
Okay, I've been trying to figure this out, and cross-reference with various sources. A few things need clearing up. Firstly, the layout of the disc should be made explicit - as I understand it one side (facing outwards) is entirely music, and the other contains more music, the messages and sounds, and the video.
Also, is the disc monaural? I assume so, but it would be nice for this to be made explicit.
The number of video images appears slightly uncertain. Nasa, and this article, says 115. The CED site says 116 and says Nasa miscounted, and goldenrecord.org shows 116. CED goes on to say that there were also 6 video text pages, 2 with Carter's message, and 4 with Nasa names - credits, if you will. Although I've not seen any other explicit reference to this - only sources mentioning ambiguously that the disc has a "printed" message from Carter, which in the past I've interpreted to mean that it was printed on/inside the case. Also, apparently, 20 of the images were in colour, encoded as triplets of red/green/blue images, with the rest being just monochrome. So one could say that there were 162 frames, encoding 102 monochrome images and 20 colour images.
The image types should also be clarified - at the moment it hints that they're just photos. It's actually a combination of diagrams, photos and photos with explanatory notes.
The article says "printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim." Don't think that's right - more accurate to say Carter's message was text encoded as video, and Waldheim's message was spoken in the audio section.
Anyone disagree with any of this? -- KJBracey ( talk) 00:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I thought we must cleanned the data of the music, specially the issue concearning to the authorship of the recordings. A week ago I've found in the next webpage of the UCLA http://digital.library.ucla.edu/frontera/librarian?ITEMID=CAP_71086_X-41730-D1&SIZE=Medium the possible authorship of "El Cascabel" recording, being wrong the attribution to Lorenzo Barcelata and Mariachi México. I changed the data on the chart in that section.Any questions or changes please let me know -- Beat Boy ( talk) 22:31, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
What's the disk's diameter? 194.75.159.78 ( talk) 14:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I changed the info about the Gould recording to "Book 1" from "Book 2". 90.184.202.246 ( talk) 21:11, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Beethoven Cavatina per NASA website is performed by the Budapest String Quartet, as in the page’s list of music. However, in text above it is attributed to Quartetto Italiano.
2601:601:F00:DEA:305B:E28B:CFC9:4166 (
talk)
19:09, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Is the record durable enough to survive the descent through a distant planet's atmosphere? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.89.0.118 ( talk) 00:26, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely not. 76.21.37.87 ( talk) 00:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Is AC+79 3888 in the constellation of Ophiucus?. The AC+79 3888 wiki article says it's in Camelopardalis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.198.51.37 ( talk) 17:15, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Gliese 445 is in the constellation of Camelopardalis (at RA 11:47 and Dec 78:41, see http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-S?GJ%20445 and also the cited http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/interstellar.html). The previous edit (529960029) is correct. This also matches the Wikipedia articles on Voyager 1 and Gliese 445 (the latter used to say Ophiuchus but was fixed in 2008!). I will restore the IP edit (changing to Camelopardalis). Majumda ( talk) 21:29, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Is it in any order at all? Is it in the oder of what's on the disc or something? Also, I noticed that the first mention of the states says 'U.S.' while the next two say 'USA'. Is this inconsistency there for a reason? -- Thaddius ( talk) 13:13, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
In contrast to the discussion on the top of the page, the image of the record's cover still appears upside down for me. It would be nice to have it fixed at some stage, since it mismatches the NASA explanation diagram. 95.208.68.54 ( talk) 18:06, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Since there are no mentions anywhere of the nature of the images are contained within the record, I decided to create a new article, Contents of the Voyager Golden Record, that would list them. After a bit a thought, I figured the sounds and music should be aggregated in this article also.
The rationale for creating a new article was that the list would make the current voyager golden record too big and the layout awkward. I find it sad that all this material (the music and the images) is all copyrighted, but in time (they will expire someday), I believe some wikipedians will find a way to add those images and sounds to wikipedia's media collection for all to enjoy.
After all, this record the only piece of humanity that extends past our solar systems and is supposed to represent all of us. Despite it being a timecapsule (made in the late 70's) and given the limitations of the medium, I found the image selection still relevant and very apt at describing life on this planet. I digress, but this record definatly has very deep philosophical implications that I believe all humans should explore. If you want to see the photos and hear the sounds go to http://goldenrecord.org/. Comments welcome. Tinss ( talk) 16:51, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
How much data is recorded on the record in bytes? It occurs to me that if we were to do something like this again now, sending up a terabyte hard drive and a solar powered computer would enable a single push button to allow the finder to see and hear video/audio and then surf a cached version of all the languages of Wikipedia plus some language learning materials like Rosetta Stone or whatever.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 15:59, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
FadulJA ( talk) 03:14, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
If I had to do it, I'd include a series which demonstrated our life-cycle, from birth to death - preferably for both a 1st Worlder and a nomadic hunter gatherer. I'd include another one on our sexual reproduction. One on our cities, another on our suburbs, and on our villages and rural domiciles. The others would be on our museums, art, and technology. I can see chess making it after a couple hundred of thousand more common situations. I note that no photograph is capable of "showing" any mathematical quantity. 98.21.243.87 ( talk) 19:58, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
The background section contradicts the Voyager 1 article in two ways. The background section for Voyager Golden Record states:
“ | As of 2012, the two Voyager spacecraft became the third and fourth human artifacts to escape entirely from the solar system. | ” |
However, the Voyager 1 article clearly expresses that Voyager 1 has both traveled a greater distance than Pioneer 10 and 11:
“ | On February 17, 1998, Voyager 1 became the farthest man-made object from Earth, passing Pioneer 10 at 69 AU from the Sun.[35] Since then, Voyager 1 has been the farthest manmade object from Earth... | ” |
And the Voyager 1 article states that not even Voyager 1 has managed to leave the solar system "entirely":
“ | On December 3, 2012, NASA scientists announced that Voyager 1 had discovered a previously unknown region of the heliosphere. Described as a "magnetic highway," here the pressure of the interstellar medium sweeps back the Sun’s magnetic field and with it many of the slower moving particles emerging from within the solar system. These are mixed with faster moving particles entering the solar system from the interstellar medium. The magnetic field in this newly discovered region is 10 times more intense than Voyager 1 encountered before the termination shock. It is expected to be the last barrier before the spacecraft exits the solar system completely and enters interstellar space. | ” |
(With 3 citations listed, I might add). ialsoagree ( talk) 07:07, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
this was the 2nd paragraph in materials before i editted it.
The records also had the sentence "To the makers of music – all worlds, all times" handwritten on them. Since this was not in the original disc specification, it almost caused their rejection.
and this is the section of NYT article that is referenced
And after the record was completed, NASA rejected it on technical grounds. Late one night in a New York sound studio, when we’d finished cutting the master, I inscribed the words, “To the makers of music — all worlds, all times,” in the “takeout grooves” next to the label. (The Voyager record is a metal version of the 33 1/3 vinyl records of the day, recorded at half-speed to double its data content. Etching an inscription between the takeout grooves was a trope I’d picked up from John Lennon.) A NASA quality-control officer checked the record against specifications and found that while the record’s size, weight, composition and magnetic properties were all in order, its blueprints made no provision for an inscription.
So the record was rejected as a nonstandard part, and the space agency prepared to replace it with a blank disc. Sagan had to persuade the NASA administrator to sign a waiver before the record could fly.
i'm not 100% happy with what i changed the text to. so please change the wording. i've never been that comfortable writing, and most of my edits involve fixing spelling mistakes, broken links, adding links. mostly just tidying up. but the original text didn't make sense. i thought that someone took a pencil, or marker and simply wrote on the gold surface. i read the article referenced and found out what it actually was. these sorts of etched inscriptions are common with LPs, often just some sort of serial number or sometimes a signature or message. it's interesting because it combines a small, often overlooked detail of an everyday object (LPs being everyday at the time) and included it on something that has already or will soon leave the solar system.
i know i'm drastically oversharing on this tiny edit. it's just that i do realize that carl sagan himself described it as "handwritten" in episode 6 of cosmos#!*$&^%, and don't want to start another useless and irrational edit war because i'm disagreeing with a word sagan said to describe something he helped make. i greatly admire sagan, but i don't necessarily think he was more knowledgable about music recording, LP production or etching terminology than the person who produced it.
#!*$&^% bloody hell. i keep forgetting that "youtu(.)be" links are blocked.. so i couldn't include a link to the relevant moment in the video. go here and jump to around 8:28 to see the part where sagan describes the disc. ≈ Sensorsweep ( talk) 06:25, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
A proposal along the same lines to send a Wikipedia into space has been made here. Comments are welcome. -- econterms ( talk) 00:59, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
One of the Star Trek movies was based on V-ger which the crew of the Enterprise discovered to be Voyager after being intercepted and modified by an alien race, it was on its way back to Earth.
192.119.201.146 ( talk) 16:25, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
https://soundcloud.com/nasa/sets/golden-record-greetings-to-the
Victor Grigas ( talk) 17:19, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
The main pages for the space probes do not have their names in itals. Is there a reason they are italicized on this page? Not with all those rocks about ( talk) 04:34, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
Let us give 'the theoretical aliens' the benefit of the doubt and assume them capable of deducing 'first level interactions with the rest of the galaxy' (the sentient species exploring their solar system and starting to #intentionally# send things beyond it) and making due allowances. 09:55, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
The disk in the first image appears as a vertical oval. Should be fixed by somebody who knows how. -- Janke | Talk 14:26, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
The article says that the material was encoded along with instructions that referenced "binary arithmetic" for decoding. It mentions time intervals in units of 700 picoseconds "expressed in time units of 0.70 billionths of a second, the time period associated with a fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom. "
It's not completely clear how you get from this
to 3.6 seconds
Can someone explain the math?
Mjshulman ( talk) 20:54, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
EDIT: just found this https://www.cedmagic.com/featured/voyager/voyager-record.html
I'll update the article and reference the link in a bit if you all think it's ok.
Mjshulman ( talk) 21:01, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
The article on Wikipedia states that the Golden Record also carried an hour-long recording of the brainwaves of Ann Druyan. This is deceiving as the total maximum time sound could be recorded on the Golden Record is roughly 105 minutes, yet the article says the record also has about 90 minutes of music. The time of the music and a full hour of the brainwaves would be 150 minutes.
I found an article that states the brainwaves were compressed to one minute, in the "Life Signs" section:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-is-on-voyagers-golden-record-73063839/
Please advise if the article on Wikipedia should also state the brainwaves were compressed. Note the following was in the Smithsonian article: "Compressed into a minute-long segment, the brain waves sound, writes Druyan, like a 'string of exploding firecrackers.'” Dkf12 ( talk) 18:45, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
"The drawing immediately below shows how these lines are to be drawn vertically, with staggered "interlace" to give the correct picture rendition."
I'm not sure what the author meant here with "staggered" or "interlace" but that's a TV-specific term which does not apply here. Usually it means that odd lines are rendered first into the frame, then the even lines in-between the previous ones. That's not the case here. Going back to the referenced article, the mention of interlace refers to a processing artifact but neither the author nor me are sure about that. I would vote remove the unsourced information, for now, e.g.: "The drawing immediately below shows how these lines are to be drawn vertically". Also, I would vote to rewrite the paragraph as it repeats "immediately below" several times.
If anyone has a particular opinion about the related navigational Template:Voyager Golden Record, and the form it should take, you may wish to voice an opinion at Template talk:Voyager Golden Record.
Personally, IMHO these edits are not an improvement and have diminished the usefulness of this navbox. Other editors may have more constructive ideas. Cnbrb ( talk) 12:30, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
I get the idea of the “Intergalactic Invitation To Earth”, what I was wondering is if there were certain coordinates given should there be a visitation? 174.91.71.218 ( talk) 20:07, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
I believe the following is inherently ambiguous: The Voyager Golden Records are two phonograph records which were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. ie: Where one or two records included on each spacecraft? My attempt at correcting this was undone by Tuneyloon, and it is now ambiguious again, any comments on this? Eparaqutam ( talk) 04:41, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
There is a layer of nickel between the gold and copper as confirmed here: [2] but it seems to be very uncommon knowledge. Chemically, you can't plate gold directly onto copper and need an intermediary like nickel. I'll add this fact to the manufacturing section to help spread the word and clear confusion. Jhmadden ( talk) 17:30, 10 June 2024 (UTC)