Carl Sagan was an astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, professor and science communicator who was fascinated by extra-terrestrial life. You can read about him in Whizz Pop Bang 98: Aliens!
Carl was involved in American space exploration since it began in the 1950s. He put together messages that were sent into outer space in the 1970s on the Voyager Golden Record.
Read more about space in these out-of-this-world issues of Whizz Pop Bang!
Copies of the Golden Record were carried by Voyager I and Voyager II. They contained:
- Messages in 55 ancient and modern languages
- Sounds from Earth
- Images of humans and Earth
The discs contained diagrams that explain where Earth is and how to play the record. Scientists spent a long time working out how to communicate these messages to aliens!
Here are some examples of things that were included on Carl Sagan’s Golden Record. You can find a full list of everything that was included here.
Greetings in ancient and modern languages
“May all be very well.”
“Greetings to our friends in the stars. We wish that we will meet you someday.”
“Hi. How are you? Wish you peace, health and happiness.”
“Peace”
“How are you?”
“We greet you, great ones. We wish you longevity”
“Welcome, creatures from beyond the outer world.”
“Hello to everyone. We are happy here and you be happy there.”
“Hello and greetings to all.”
“Good health to you now and forever.”
Music
Images
We can’t include the photographs and diagrams included on the Golden Record because of copyright but you can see some of them here. These show some of the same subjects that featured on it.
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
NOAA/NASA EPIC Team
By Zephyris – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15027555
CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49421
By Neil Thompson – Olympic Park London 2012, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20601691
Mukul urp, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0
CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Staff at the Department of Radiology, UC San Diego Health., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By B137 – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66473948
By Balon Greyjoy – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=113776187
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