NASA’s Plan to Introduce the Earth to Aliens?
NASA sends 115 images and audio clips to summarise what Earth is to the aliens. Read the whole story behind this interesting endeavour.
NASA’s Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977, from Cape Canaveral, FL.
In 2012, after 35 years of its launch, it became the first human-made object to left the Solar System and enter interstellar space.
One interesting part of this revolutionary mission is a 12-inch gold-plated copper phonograph record, popularly known as Voyager Golden Record.
Though Voyager 1 and 2 will soon be out of function. NASA had predicted that they would be able to keep their suite of science instruments through 2021.
But they have advanced their age. They continue to communicate with the Deep Space Network to receive routine commands and to transmit data to Earth.
An interesting point is that though non-operational, the object will continue to escape the solar system with a speed of ~61,500 km/h.
Presently, Voyager 1 is 14.5 billion miles (23.3 billion km) away from Earth. And without much to erode the spacecraft and its contents in space, the Golden Record embedded in it is estimated to survive a billion years, aimlessly travelling through the Milky Way.
Is it even significant?
Probably not.
It is very unlikely that Voyager 1 or 2 will ever be found and retrieved by another life-form. And because it has already outlived the age it was expected to be functional, for us this incredible journey will soon come to an end.
Its cameras were shut down forever after it took a series of 60 images of our solar system in 1990. It later became popular by the name “A Family Portrait.”
It wasn't planned and it took 6 years requesting before the engineering team finally approved it. They are quite stubborn, it seems.
This is the last picture Voyager took and sent to Earth on 14 February 1990, as a Valentine’s gift, maybe.
Okay, enough romance for a spacecraft. Now let's come back to the topic and see why it was important to introduce ourselves to the aliens, should we encounter.
“It would be impolite not to say hello,” Carl Sagan, who chaired the Golden Record Project, said.
That’s why they said hello and greetings to the universe in 55 different languages.
That's a big enough reason to put our message out there that we can live for hundreds of millions of years, isn’t it?
The English one said, “hello from the children of planet Earth.” I kid you not, I'm literally getting goosebumps typing it. Go listen to the original clip on YouTube.
The voice behind that message was Carl Sagan’s then six-year-old son, Nick Sagan. That’s truly thoughtful.
What else is in Voyager Golden Record?
It has more in it than greetings in 55 different languages.
It is a collection of sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth.
Maybe someday this spacecraft encounters one intelligent extraterrestrial civilization and they are able to decode the message, voice and pictures.
There are also 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as thunder and the chirp of crickets.
Here's a detailed catalogue:
115 images (the selection process took one year)
A variety of natural sounds (volcanic eruption, rain, etc.)
Spoken greetings in 55 different ancient and modern language
Musical collections from different cultures and eras
Spoken greetings in English by U.N. Secretary Kurt Waldheim
Greeting by Sagan’s six-year-old son Nick (Hello from the children of planet earth one)
The inspirational message: Per aspera ad astra (to the stars through hardships) in Morse code
A printed message from U.S. president Jimmy Carter
Hey, but aren’t all those efforts useless and in vain?
You can argue it is.
The probability of this spacecraft encountering any life form is in itself close to zero, if not zero.
Then there comes the ‘decrypting the message’ part. It's impossible no matter how much effort we’ve put in.
But, after all, it’s a story. It’s a realisation of how far we have come.
And as Carl Sagan puts it: “…but the launching of this ‘bottle’ into the cosmic ‘ocean’ says something very hopeful about life on this planet.”
It surely does. That “hello from the children of planet earth” message alone is so hopeful.
The top comment from this YouTube video (a remix or all greetings aboard Voyager): “When I hear this, I don’t feel American, French, Swiss, or anything like that, I feel Human. I feel like I belong to a United country: Earth.”
Here are some pictures
These pictures are not JPGs. They are in analog form.
So, yes, only an exceptionally intelligent alien could decode it.
Here are some of them:
[For the complete list, visit: https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/images-on-the-golden-record]
It’s truly marvellous to reflect how far we have come as a civilization. Maybe aliens can’t understand us, but we are intelligent enough to get the meaning of a simple “hello from the planet Earth.”
It’s our curiosity that has brought us here and I am sure we have a long way to go.
God I got goosebumps as well. Chilly