The Sounds Of Earth

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 1977

Label: Not On Label

The Voyager Golden Record is a phonograph record included in the two Voyager spacecrafts launched in 1977. It contains sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth.
The record contains image data and etched symbols.
Eleven copies exist — two are onboard the Voyager spacecrafts, one is on display in a museum, eight copies are archived at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Archives, USA.

The release is stored in a protective aluminum jacket with a cartridge and needle. The record was manufactured by James G. Lee Record Processing Center.

The chances of the probes being intercepted by an alien race are fairly remote, especially when one considers it will take over 40,000 years to come within 1.7 light years of the nearest star. By this time this golden record may be only considered a time capsule, a record of a past civilization. The record consists of some 115 images of earth encoded in analogue format at the beginning of the record, after which are greetings in 55 languages, various field recordings of Earth and 90 minutes of music.

The record's cover consists of diagrams showing how to retrieve the data and audio as well as the location of Earth in relation to 14 nearby pulsar stars and the lowest form of a hydrogen atom meant to be a base for retrieving the encoded information. A pure sample of uranium-238 was electroplated on the cover for dating purposes. The half-life of uranium-238 is 4.51 billion years.

A7 is listed officially as featuring "Devil Bird" as the second song after "Morning Star", but new research conducted by space archaeologist Alice Gorman suggests that when "Morning Star" cuts off after 23 seconds, the song that comes on is not "Devil Bird" but a different piece called "Moikoi".

It was re-released as a double CD boxed set with book in 1992 by Warner.

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