This sort of topic is not always discussed in public spaces or even in private or group chats. Among Indian audience, we are always engaged in the socio-political, economic and environmental chaos. Discussions on Astronomy is infrequently being brought upon as a subject among a group of onlookers. Like Carl Sagan quoted “Astronomy is a humbling and character building experience” and its relevance is much important to human beings at this moment on Earth than it ever was.

Voyager 1 is a spacecraft launched by NASA on Sept 05, 1977. Its primary mission is to take a much closer look on Jupiter and Saturn and its trajectory is designed to send the spacecraft closely past the large moon and behind Saturn’s ring. Voyager 1 continued its exploration of interplanetary research and became the first man-made object to make it to the Interstellar travel. Other than accomplishing primary missions, Voyager 1

carried a phenomenal object which could be a message for any habitable planet outside our solar system with the same or higher level intelligence of life form compared to humans. It’s called the “Golden Record”. The Golden Record carries a various number of messages in the form of Sounds, Music, Images and Greetings to let any extraterrestrial life or future humans know about the rich and diverse cultures of Earth’s civilization. Dr. Carl Sagan, who led the committee of content selection of the Golden record stated that “The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space, but the launching of this ‘bottle’ into the cosmic ‘ocean’ says something very hopeful about life on this planet.” These messages can only be decoded by a life form which has certainly evolved a higher level of intelligence.

The images contained in the Golden record were so expressive and polite, it would convey that humankind had a good past even though we hardly have had a good time. The committee chose not to include any pictures related to war, poverty, and religion. Captured across various countries and people, the team assembled 115 images representing humans and their versatile nature. The record additionally contains the information about the location of earth and how to find us among the planetary framework. Remaining is the audio record which comprises the Sounds of Earth, greetings from humans in 60 languages, sounds such as occurring of natural phenomenon, animals, first tools, vehicles, speech, etc. A 90-minute selection of music-everything from Beethoven to ChuckBerry, including western and eastern classics and distinct ethnic pieces of music were sent out to the cosmic ocean in a physical form.

Sharing thoughts on Golden record, I would personally argue that Golden record is one of the most possible humanely made objects that humankind has ever done in its history. Science has made its way through a religious turmoil in this world marking its significance in the history and the Golden record is one of those. Even though the record would take almost 40,000 years to reach the other star system, this unmanned ship bears a message for any alien civilization it may one day encounter in the interstellar space. We all are aware of the fact that Communication has helped people connect with each other and survive better, a certain message in a solid form making its way through space conveys that we as a race must thrive hopefully in this vastness. We can assume a situation where a civilization out there is ready to decode our message, though we literally have no clue on how the neighbors understanding would be after they get to know about sharing a galactic civilization. Would they appreciate the rhythms we sent? Would they have nations? Would they understand races, cultures, languages and its diversification that we have on earth? These questions cannot be answered but this leap of humanity would bring us a purpose and our importance in the cosmos. We must seek the importance of this time capsule of humans and its eternal journey into the void, because the answer lies in our own hands also, that we as a species must make choice between surviving hopefully in the future or destroy ourselves for imaginary constructions. Let’s hope the Golden record reaches our unknown neighbor(s) but doesn’t remain an epitaph.