The human race has taken one step further into the final frontier. Two weeks ago NASA’a Voyager 1 spacecraft recorded sounds of vibrating plasma in space which signaled its departure from our solar system. The sounds Voyager 1 recorded are audible to the human ear. Take a listen…

This recording reminded me that Voyager 1 isn’t just out recording sounds in space, it’s carrying sounds and music as well.

Before Voyager 1 left Earth on September 5th, 1977, scientists attached a gold-plated, 12-inch record that contains sounds from Earth, along with a needle and cartridge for playing. Some examples of the sounds on the record are ocean waves, wind and greetings from people in over fifty languages. But the record also contains something much more exciting to me; 27 musical selections. There are many pieces from Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven along with songs from Chuck Berry, Louis Armstrong and pieces from many genres of the world. You can see the entire list here.

They were able to fit so much on one record because the gold-plated record plays at an unconventional 16 2/3 revolutions per minute. But on second thought, a gold-plated record may be unconventional to an extraterrestrial in the first place.

The backside of the record is complete with instructions to play the record in a symbolic language. Which is a good idea because, contrary to what is shown on the Star Trek series, everyone in the universe probably doesn’t speak English.

It’s exciting to think that music created here on Earth has now left our solar system. Though it will probably be quite awhile before we get some cool news from Voyager 1 again, I will entertain myself in the meantime with the image of an alien doing the duck walk to “Johnny B. Goode”.