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Intrigued by the cosmic scope of your question, we typed the phrase "space capsule message to universe" into the search box. The results quickly led us to Voyager Golden Record, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), a page describing the Interstellar Outreach Program's greeting to the universe. At the JPL site, we learned that the first spacecraft to actually exit the solar system was Pioneer 10, launched in 1972. That spacecraft bears metal plaques describing its planet of origin, just in case it encounters other travelers during its journey. However, the message carried by the more recent Voyager missions is longer, more elaborate,
and more carefully considered. A committee headed by astronomer, author, and space exploration advocate, Carl Sagan, designed and selected the Voyager's message. It is inscribed on a 12- inch gold-plated copper disk and contains sounds and images expressive of life on Earth and the best of human culture and civilization. This includes a greeting in 55 different languages, from Aramaic to Vietnamese. We listened to a child's voice in English say "Hello from the children of Planet Earth", and a Spanish speaker saying, "¡Hola y saludos a todos!"
The record also includes a compilation of great music from blues to Bach to ragas, and a sampler of non-human Earth sounds such as wind, rain, surf, chimps, sheep, crickets, saws, and trains. We browsed some of the photographic images the Voyager carries electronically -- simple depictions of essential human knowledge including maps, diagrams of DNA, vertebrate anatomy charts, chemical and mathematical definitions, and other visual displays. A book titled Murmurs of the Earth, writtten by Sagan and colleagues, was first published in 1978, then reissued in 1992 with a CD-ROM compilation of the Golden Record, and a description of its creation. Unfortunately, both editions are currently out of print. Sagan was also the author of the science-fiction novel Contact, which became
the award-winning 1997 movie about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
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