Voyager Starship Page

MIT Space Plasma Group

This page adapts information from the NASA Spacelink Voyager site

VOYAGER'S GREETINGS TO THE UNIVERSE

The Voyager spacecraft will be the third and fourth human artifacts to escape entirely from the solar system. Pioneers 10 and 11, which preceded Voyager in outstripping the gravitational attraction of the Sun, both carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find them in the distant future. With this example before them, NASA placed a more ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2 -- a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials.

The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record: a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University. Dr. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind and thunder, birds, whales, and other animals. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earth -- people in sixty languages -- and printed messages from President Carter and U.N. Secretary General Waldheim.

Each record is encased in a protective aluminum jacket, together with a cartridge and needle. Instructions, in symbolic language, explain the origin of the spacecraft and indicate how the record is to be played. The 115 images are encoded in analog form. The remainder of the record is in audio, designed to be played at 16 2/3 revolutions per second. It contains the spoken greetings, beginning with Akkadian, which was spoken in Sumer about six thousand years ago, and ending with Wu, a modern Chinese dialect. Following the section on the sounds of Earth, there is an eclectic 90-minute selection of music, including both Eastern and Western classics and a variety of ethnic music.

Once the Voyager spacecraft leave the solar system (by 1990, both will be beyond the orbit of Pluto), they will find themselves in empty space. It will be forty thousand years before they come within a light year of a star, called AC + 79 3888, and millions of years before either might make a close approach to any other planetary system. As Carl Sagan has noted, "The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced spacefaring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet."

LANGUAGES ON VOYAGER RECORD

Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite, Hebrew, Aramaic, English, Portuguese, Cantonese, Russian, Thai, Arabic, Roumanian, French, Burmese, Spanish, Indonesian, Kechua, Dutch, German, Bengali, Urdu, Hindi, Turkish, Vietnamese, Welsh, Sinhalese, Italian, Greek, Nguni, Latin, Sotho, Japanese, Wu, Punjabi, Korean, Armenian, Polish, Netali, Mandarin, Gujoratilla (Zambia), Nyanja, Swedish, Kannada, Ukrainia, Telugu, Persian, Oriya, Serbian, Hungarian, Luganada, Czech, Amoy (Min dialect), Rajasthani, Marathi.

SOUNDS OF EARTH ON VOYAGER RECORD

Whales, planets (music), volcanoes, mud pots, rain, surf, crickets and frogs, birds, hyena, elephant, chimpanzee, wild dog, footsteps and heartbeats, laughter, fire, tools, dogs (domestic), herding sheep, blacksmith shop, sawing, riveter, tractor, kiss, Morse code, truck, baby, auto gears, ships, auto gears, life signs (EEG, EKG), horse and cart, jet, horse and carriage, lift-off (Saturn 5), pulsar, train whistle, rocket.

VOYAGER RECORD PHOTOGRAPH INDEX

Calibration circle, solar location map, mathematical definitions, physical unit definitions, solar system parameters, sun, solar spectrum, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Earth, Egypt (with the Red Sea, the Sinai Peninsula and the Nile), chemical definitions, DNA structure, DNA structure magnified, cells and cell division, anatomy (eight), human sex organs, diagram of conception, conception, fertilized ovum, fetus diagram, fetus, diagram of male and female, nursing mother, father and daughter (Malasia), group of children, diagram of family ages, family portrait. diagram of continental drift, structure of Earth, Heron Island (Great Barrier Reef of Australia), seashore, Snake River and Grand Tetons, sand dunes, Monument Valley, forest scene with mushrooms, leaf, fallen leaves, Sequoia, snowflake, tree with daffodils, flying insect with flowers, diagram of vertebrate evolution, seashell (Xancidae), dolphins, school of fish, tree toad, crocodile, eagle, waterhold, Jane Goodall and chimps, sketch of Bushmen, Bushmen hunters, man from Guatamala, dancer from Bali, Andean girls, Thailand craftsman, elephant, old man with beard and glasses (Turkey), old man with dog and mowers, mountain climber, Cathy Rigby, sprinters, schoolroom, children with globe, cotton harvest, grape picker, supermarket, underwater scene with diver and fish, fishing boat with nets, cooking fish, Chinese dinner party, demonstration of licking and eating and drinking, Great Wall of China, house construction (African), construction scene (Amish country), house (Africa), house (New England), modern house (Cloudcroft, New Mexico), house interior with artist and fire, Taj Mahal, English city (Oxford), Boston, UN Building (day), UN Building (night), Sydney Opera House, artisan with drill, factory interior, museum, x-ray of hand, woman with microscope, street scene in Asia (Pakistan), rush hour traffic (India) modern highway (Ithaca), Golden Gate Bridge, train, airplane in flight, airport (Toronto), Antarctic expedition, radio telescope (Westerbork, Netherlands), radio telescope (Arecibo), page of book (Newton, System of the World), astronaut in space, Titan Centaur launch, sunset with birds, string quartet (Quartetto Italiano), violin with music score (Cavatina).

MUSIC ON VOYAGER RECORD

Bach: Brandenberg Concerto Number Two (First Movement), "Kinds of Flowers" (Javanese Court Gamelan), Senegalese percussion, Pygmy girls initiation song, Australian Horn and Totem song, "El Cascabel" (Lorenzo Barcelata), "Johnny B. Goode" (Chuck Berry), New Guinea Men's House, "Depicting the Cranes in Their Nest", Bach: Partita Number Three for Violin (Gavotte et Rondeaus), Mozart: Magic Flute (Queen of the Night, Aria Number l4) Chakrulo, Peruvian Pan Pipes, Melancholy Blues, Azerbaijan Two Flutes, Stravinsky: Rite of Spring (Conclusion), Bach: Prelude and Fugue Number One in C Major from the Well Tempered Clavier (Book Two), Beethoven: Fifth Symphony (First Movement), Bulgarian Shepherdess Song: "Izlel Delyo Hajdutin", Navajo Indian Night Chant, The Fairie Round from Pavans (Galliards, Almains), Melanesian Pan Pipes, Peruvian Woman's Wedding Song, "Flowing Streams" (Chinese Ch'in music), "Jaat Kahan Ho" (Indian Raga), "Dark Was the Night", Beethoven: String Quartet Number 13 ("Cavatina").