How the Voyager Golden Record Was Made (newyorker.com) 122
Fascinating article on The New Yorker about how the Voyager Golden Record was made: The Voyagers' scientific mission will end when their plutonium-238 thermoelectric power generators fail, around the year 2030. After that, the two craft will drift endlessly among the stars of our galaxy -- unless someone or something encounters them someday. With this prospect in mind, each was fitted with a copy of what has come to be called the Golden Record. Etched in copper, plated with gold, and sealed in aluminum cases, the records are expected to remain intelligible for more than a billion years, making them the longest-lasting objects ever crafted by human hands. We don't know enough about extraterrestrial life, if it even exists, to state with any confidence whether the records will ever be found. They were a gift, proffered without hope of return. I became friends with Carl Sagan, the astronomer who oversaw the creation of the Golden Record, in 1972. He'd sometimes stop by my place in New York, a high-ceilinged West Side apartment perched up amid Norway maples like a tree house, and we'd listen to records. Lots of great music was being released in those days, and there was something fascinating about LP technology itself. A diamond danced along the undulations of a groove, vibrating an attached crystal, which generated a flow of electricity that was amplified and sent to the speakers. At no point in this process was it possible to say with assurance just how much information the record contained or how accurately a given stereo had translated it. The open-endedness of the medium seemed akin to the process of scientific exploration: there was always more to learn.
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on what you mean by "interstellar debris". Space is very, very, very empty.
Re: (Score:2)
Space is very, very, very empty.
It's actually filled with a lot of energy.
Re:Most likely they'll encounter interstellar debr (Score:5, Interesting)
Not very likely. Space is, to coin a phrase, is big. All the stuff there is hardly amounts to anything compared to space. The average density of the universe is roughly one atom for every four cubic meters.
Now gravitation will tend to steer the things to places with more matter, but if you were to send the largest thing made by humans through the densest part of the Asteroid belt, in all likelihood it would encounter nothing but a few stray atoms.
Our mental pictures of space are corrupted by science fiction, which for dramatic purposes draws upon nautical imagery: storms and shoals and the like. But most likely events in navigating space, other than slowly cooking in radiation if you're in the vicinity of a star, are all system failures. Natural events will be a once-in-many-lifetime occurrences. There are no "ion storms" in space; asteroid fields would appear to human perception as utterly devoid of anything.
Re: (Score:2)
While true, it's still far more likely that the record will eventually hit a rock of some form than that it will land in the hands of an intelligent species. Space may be empty, but of what we do know to be out there, a much larger portion of it is some form of rock than is intelligent life.
Re: (Score:3)
Hard to say. Each Voyager spacecraft could pass tens of thousands of stars in the next billion years (Voyager 1 passes its next star after 40k years) - depending on your definition of "pass". And they're pretty radar-reflective.
Whether they'd ever be recovered depends really on the answer to the Fermi paradox.
BTW, I'm listening to the record right now... it sure would be fun to be an alien species tasked with decoding it. I doubt they could get far on the voice, but a lot of the nature and machinery sounds
Re: (Score:2)
There is also a video component on the record. Even if the sounds are meaningless to the species that finds it, chances are that they will find the non-random patterns and make the connection to either sound or light.
Re: (Score:2)
You complete me.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The instructions on how to decyper the phonograph is also listed on the outside of the spacecraft in a pretty simple symbolic code and some picture diagrams on how to recover the information.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem I think parent is alluding to is that the probe is traveling really fast. If it came sailing through our solar system at 17 km/s, we'd have a heck of a time trying to catch up to it. Even more so as I'm pretty sure we'd not realize just how interesting of an object it is until is was already right on top of us not giving a very big window to react. And that's assuming we'd even detect it and realize what it was in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
Something that would make the Voyager spacecraft stand out as something interesting to look at is that the albedo would be incredibly high (it is far brighter for its size & mass due to the refined metal panels and protective gold-plated foil surrounding the key instruments) and the spectrum of light coming from it would look almost unique compared to any other object. It looks manufactured and can be detected as a manufactured object.
A somewhat similar object is a near-Earth asteroid that has a really
Re: (Score:2)
That's assuming they'll find the record in the first place and know it's not just a 'weird lid', then they should also be able to hear and see in very similar wave ranges to us or know how to translate it.
Us humans barely understand our own technology that's older than a few 100 years, the Antikythera mechanism, Stonehenge, Inca's and Egyptians all had very basic tools and crude calculations compared to ours and we barely understand both what they had to say and what they did with it, most of it still being
Re: (Score:2)
Looks like you dropped this:
oya
IHBT, still this CAN NOT stand (Score:2)
wed128 feigns knowledge of the historical documents [wikipedia.org]
disappointing. This used to be a nerd site.
Still in keeping with the traditions of our people, " No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame. "
Re: (Score:2)
The record is supplied with instructions on the correct rotational speed and means of playing. Any civilisation capable of intercepting it should have no trouble decoding it.
At which point they will probably classify Earth as 'no intelligent life.'
Re: (Score:2)
If we found it today we wouldn't even use a physical needle but rather laser map it to exceedingly high detail. It would take two seconds for someone to figure out the instructions, especially if the entire planet could see it over the Internet.
Re: (Score:2)
The Antikythera mechanism is pretty well understood and many of the wheels have been mapped to celestial phenomena (like the movement of planets during the times of the ancient Greeks), cultural
Re: (Score:2)
While true, it's still far more likely that the record will eventually hit a rock of some form than that it will land in the hands of an intelligent species. Space may be empty, but of what we do know to be out there, a much larger portion of it is some form of rock than is intelligent life.
You're assuming both possibilities are completely driven by random chance without offering any proof that is the case. We really don't have enough information to even pretend to draw a conclusion regarding those probabilities.
Re: (Score:2)
You're neglecting a third possibility, that the object will decay to the point where the information encoded is no longer recoverable.
Re: (Score:2)
That's possible, according to the article that will take over a billion years, which to me sounds like long enough for something else to happen.
Re: (Score:2)
That's possible, according to the article that will take over a billion years, which to me sounds like long enough for something else to happen.
Which is exactly my point: our intuitions about what "sounds" likely are unreliable because they're based on our experiences, which are all formed on the Earth where stuff is abundant and interacting with other stuff all the time. Our imaginations are simply not attuned to the emptiness of space.
Re: (Score:2)
our analysis of both our plane, and other planets, indicate that things collide with them all the time, in a billion years it's quite possible that the same fate would befall these probes.
As for "degrade over time", that degradation tends to happen through hitting small things. Remember, space is empty, if it isn't exposed to anything, what's to cause it to degrade?
Re: (Score:2)
(1) planets are vastly larger targets than the Voyager spacecraft.
(2) planets (by definition currently) have powerful gravitational effects in their neighborhood.
(3) planets in comparatively crowded neighborhoods -- the ecliptic plane in the immediate vicinity of stars, which have *massive* gravitational wells.
(4) Interstellar space is much, much more sparsely populated (1 atom/m^3) than the solar system.
Re: (Score:2)
The items impacting planets are often much smaller than the planets themselves, I highly doubt that Voyager is immune to gravitational effects.
Re: (Score:2)
So you're thinking it will crash into a planet.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm thinking that hitting ANYTHING is more likely than being captured by an intelligent species, or degrading due to time without any particles impacting it.
Re: (Score:2)
Given crashing into something in many billions of years is nil, you feel the odds of intelligence finding it is also nil, then.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, that's two different propositions, which are two different kettles of fish.
Astronomers actually have actually estimated the time it would take for the probability of Voyager running into a star to be even: 10^21 years. Note that's 12 orders of magnitude longer than the Golden Record's expected longevity, and 11 orders of magnitude greater than the current age of the universe. Of course that's not really a valid prediction because it assumes things will remain the same. At roughly 4 billion years the
Re: (Score:2)
But you go back to the concept of the record "decaying". Based on what mechanism? What will cause decay that is not any form of particle? (being that you insisted it won't hit any particles)
Re: (Score:2)
If I said it wouldn't hit any particles, I misspoke. It will continully encounter elementary particles and helium nuclei -- in other words "cosmic radiation". It's just unlikely to hit anything that will cause immediate macroscopic damage, not in interstellar space.
The cosmic ray flux measurable near earth suggests a 1m^2 surface receives about 10,000 cosmic ray particles with energies in the GeV range every second. Three or four times a year a particle with energies in the peta-EV range will pass through
Re: (Score:1)
That could change if there's a war or terrorists trying to sneak dangerous things through. Scanning may be expensive, but sometimes worth it. Voyager's high metallicity may stand out in such scans.
Re: (Score:1)
At that point the probe should be renamed from "Voyager" to "Comcast".
Re: (Score:2)
I think far more likely that descendants of folks currently alive here on the Earth are going to head into space in a couple of centuries and add on some beacon to the probe as some sort of historical monument and a sort of time capsule. This is a famous artifact of mankind that could very likely be treated the way the pyramids are thought of today. Like the Library of Alexandria, it might be protected by some governments but when that government falls it might even be looted and taken as scrap or pulled
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Not very likely. Space is, to coin a phrase, is big.
Not really coining this phrase. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy notes, quite a while ago, that the Universe [wikia.com] is, "very big".
Re: (Score:2)
The average density of the universe is roughly one atom for every four cubic meters.
This is why it's too expensive for ISPs to roll out fiber in the USA compared to Japan or Korea.
Re: (Score:2)
This is why it's too expensive for ISPs to roll out fiber in the USA compared to Japan or Korea.
Nope. Like matter in space, you USians are all clumped together. You don't need to roll out fibre to the middle of nowhere, since no-one lives there.
You have three times as many people in California as we do here in Sweden (we're roughly the size and shape of CA). And yet we have much better and cheaper fibre than you do. It's got nothing to do with average population density as you have us solidly beat on that measure (Sweden: 24/sq km, CA: 97/sq km...)
Re: (Score:1)
C3PO's risk computations are fake news! No wonder Han told him to STFU.
In general defense of sci-fi, they tend to hang out where the "interesting stuff" is, not average space. Even my actual desk is not average (typical) space. Voyager just happens to be a proverbial hillbilly.
Re: (Score:2)
The odds are much higher it'll be captured in orbit around some celestial body.
Think about it: to become space dust it has to have almost a direct hit on something. To be captured into orbit it only has to pass through a very very large area out the the edge of the (extra) solar system.
Hmmmmm.... (Score:2)
Seems like the New Yorker wrote a super long unnecessary article when the Slashdot summary only needed part of a sentence! Par for the course (for both).
Re: (Score:1)
Dear aliens, humans often argue over different interpretations involving our vague spoken languages. Please ignore.
Never buy Release 1.0 of anything (Score:2)
I wonder if we were going to re-do it today if we could come up with better media? A billion years of memory retention ain't bad but this was 1972 we were talking about. Computer RAM memories were still mostly magnetic core with a 1.6us cycle time.
What would we use today?
Re:Never buy Release 1.0 of anything (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering the current state of the art in storage devices... probably something that degrades to unreadable before it leaves our solar system.
"progress" has not been good in the "improve longevity" part of data storage.
Re: (Score:1)
Fat chunky "bits" does help longevity. Cosmic rays and faster-than-bullet dust will pummel the disk or any medium. If the info were more compact, then redundancy may be needed to fill in the gaps caused by such space weather. If you get too clever with packaging, the aliens may not be able to figure it out or maybe won't have the patience for "puzzles".
Perhaps
Re: (Score:2)
The OP seemed to think that because technology had come so far since the first records were made that we'd have a better way now. My point was that technology surrounding data longevity has not really progressed since that time. If anything, modern storage methods have much worse longevity than the older forms.
You just can't get much better longevity than "stuff etched deeply on a strong surface" This is why we can still read stone tablets from centuries ago, but can't recover data from some CDs that are on
Re: (Score:1)
But the etching choices are probably better now than they were in the 1970's, at least cheaper for NASA/JPL. One can buy laser-etched rocks/glass/metal at consumer prices now, for example. That kind of thing was very expensive in the 70's. In that sense we have progressed.
But I agree that it's different technology and/or a different problem from consumer-oriented products. Longevity is not a consumer manufacture's key concern, and they have thus sacrificed that factor to gain in others. We could say techno
Re: (Score:2)
It goes beyond that, because consumers chose the cheaper options, manufacturers stop making the more expensive ones, meaning that even institutional types can't buy them. It's getting much harder to find archival grade storage medium because it's just not cost effective for companies to produce it when very few people buy it.
Beyond that, when developing a new technology, why bother looking at longevity as part of the design specs when nobody will pay for it?
If you want try long lasting storage, you're left
Re: (Score:1)
That's what I'm wondering. The Voyager disk has "wasted material" that is used for merely structural integrity. If every portion of the recording disk/object had info encoded into it, then perhaps it could have more i
Re: (Score:2)
Now if you focus on the means (tech), not long ago
Maybe we cant really
Re: (Score:2)
Woosh. The record was physical on purpose. Deep space radiation for millions of years (plus the radiation from the planetary fly-bys) would kill any technology that would fit on the spacecraft.
Making a physical data store any smaller would reduce the likelihood of long-term data integrity. Consider the effects of millions of years of deep space travel: radiation, micro-meteorite impacts, constant unfiltered UV light, etc.
I'd say that we would probably use the same thing, plus a replica sent Arecibo style
Re: (Score:2)
I'd actually be more interested in seeing information on the instructions given to play the record, and what details of it are thought to be enough to allow an alien species to both understand it, and actually accomplish it. It seems to me that it almost needed to include some form of record player, but that adds to the complexity, and the likelihood of failure.
Re: (Score:2)
Prego, it's in there. Second image on the article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
more details:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
While I can view the cover image, it doesn't really speak to me enough to build a record player. And the detail from Wikipedia explains what it says, but doesn't really explain why they think it's the right way to say it.
That's the part I'm curious about, why do we think that those particular images will explain how to play the record in a way that any intelligent species could figure out?
Re: (Score:2)
Because any intelligent species getting the record would immediately stick it under a microscope to see what the grooves were for, notice the grooves are wriggly, and conclude they probably store information. A little more study and they would determine that it's actually one very long, continuous groove, and the instructions take it from there.
Re: (Score:2)
Do they though? can you really see how to make an image from those grooves without reading any of the explanations?
Re: (Score:2)
We could figure it out quickly. Someone that much smarter would do so that much more quickly.
You have to hypothize idiots with the brain power of a monkey and no senses like ours to stand a remote chance of failure.
I snort the nose, Lucifer! Banana, banana! (Score:2)
I'm more concerned about what happens if the aliens play the record backwards. They might actually think that we're into that kind of stuff when they come to visit.
Instructions unclear, caused interstellar war.
Re:Never buy Release 1.0 of anything (Score:5, Interesting)
It should be immediately obvious to anyone who examined it under any sort of microscope (regardless of their sensory inputs) that there's analog data encoded there on the grooves. They shouldn't even need "instructions" to recognize that and digitize the data. A spectral analysis should show variations in frequencies, with all sorts of clustering. Regardless of what senses they perceive through, they should be able to map it to one or more of them - either as 1d data, or in 2d as a spectrogram. Enough analysis should allow them to determine that most of the audio is acoustic vibrations, so they'd map it to whatever method they best use when studying or perceiving acoustic vibrations.
Analysis of the the image section should readily show that there are 115 distinct groupings, each comprised of 3 similar patterns of 512 separate signals, and that each separate signal is correlated with but subtly different to the one before it. This should suggest 115 groupings of 2-axis data measured over 3 related but distinct parameters. Which they can then map to whatever they use best to perceive 2-axis or 3-axis data. Again, further analysis should be able to figure out analogues of certain images to natural phenomenon that they recognize (for example, images of planets and moons, or the solar spectrum diagram). This would then let them figure out that the images represent optical data on specific frequencies of light in the visual spectrum, which they could then map to however they best prefer to represent light in that spectrum.
In short, I have no doubt that they could properly "read" the records. It's more a question of how much they could actually understand of the content. The silhouettes look to be particularly confusing. And even "natural place" images could be highly deceptive - for example, this island [nasa.gov]. If they knew nothing of trees, that might be percieved as a type of aa lava on top two dissimilar layered volcanic or sedimentary features.
Re: (Score:2)
It's more a question of how much they could actually understand of the content.
I get your point, but I would think that any species/entity that would/could actually capture and analyze the record to that extent would also have a fair amount of experience in environments not like their own native environment.
Re: (Score:1)
The aliens might be used to 8-track tapes and think the disk is merely a Frisbee ;-) (Included is a diagram on how to play it, along with a needle, by the way.)
I do agree if they spend a reasonable amount of time analyzing it, they'd eventually figure out how to "play" it; but the finders may not be so motivated, perhaps because they are in a hurry or have very limited resources when they find it.
Suppose you were wandering in the desert with a small group and your trip has been rough such that you are short
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, we could do it better today. If we were willing to make the decoding more complex, we could make it digital with error-correcting codes, allowing for much higher amounts of data storage at the same level of durability, or conversely much more durability at the same level of error storage.
Physical indentations with a precious metal coating is probably the best storage means available today. But a on-off linear representation rather than wasteful grooves would be a much better choice. Also, if we
Re: (Score:2)
Just give them texts describing how monotheism is the thing and how it's important to worship the one god just right. .. have them kill each other off arguing which way that is.
Fools at NASA... (Score:2)
Obvious answer who will find them (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
We need to manage to get back out of low earth orbit first before assuming we're going to make it into interstellar space anytime.
Re: (Score:2)
If history has taught us anything, it is that our ancestors will create a portal in space-time through which we can jump to distant solar systems.
Re: Obvious answer who will find them (Score:3)
Yes, I remember when History aired that episode...
Re: (Score:2)
Where we're going, humanity won't need eyes, either.
Re:Obvious answer who will find them (Score:4, Interesting)
So... You think we are going to get such speeds soon? Right now, the best we can manage it likely about 1/2 C using ion engines (unmanned one way trip, no stopping at destination). The limiting factor is how much propellant we can actually get onto a craft along with a nuclear reactor big enough to power things. Also, the most efficient ion engines use Xenon which is in pretty limited supply.
I'm not seeing any promising space propulsion technologies that will get something useful going any faster myself.
Hard to know what we might invent in 500 years, but if you are working on any kind of propellant based system you will be limited by nozzle velocities and the weight of the propellant. Assuming you can get 90% of C nozzle velocities, you are going to have a problem getting any useful load going 50% C while keeping enough propellant to stop when you get there. If you want a two way trip, just the propellant weight will increase exponentially.
50 % C is simply not fast enough, assuming we could actually get to that speed...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
LOL.. Voyager is traveling a whole lot slower than 1/2 C.. But that's not my point.
I'm saying that with nozzle velocities at 1/2 C you will have issues thrusting a space craft of any useable weight to speeds approaching 1/2 C. Chemical propellants are not efficient enough (weight to thrust/Impulse) . Ion thrusters are much better but. Right now, ion thrusters only accelerate the propellant to maybe 100 Km/s, which isn't even 1 % of C. We are going to have to do a lot better with propellant nozzle speeds t
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, didn't realize you intended to go get it and bring it back.... Doubt anyone ever decides to do that. There would be no point to head to the edge of interstellar space and return.
My discussion was assuming you want to go someplace outside the solar system and happened pass one of the vehicles along the way... We are not leaving the solar system for another and return even a radio signal. We simply cannot go fast enough unless the laws of physics get changed...
Re: (Score:3)
In 4 billion years, the Milky Way, 400 billion stars, will collide with the Andromeda galaxy, 1 trillion stars. It's highly unlikely any stars will collide.
The odds of this thing hitting a star are nonexistent. Of hitting a planet is that divided by a few thousand.
Re: (Score:2)
The odds of this thing hitting a star are nonexistent. Of hitting a planet is that divided by a few thousand.
I'd be careful with trying to divide 0 my friend...
Re: (Score:2)
But you CAN divide by zero if the other number is small enough! At least that what they said during my calculus class...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Keep in mind that the spacecraft have a potential be to be around for a very, very long time. Even if they only pass by a star every few hundred thousand years, in a billion years they will have passed by thousands of stars. It's very likely they'll still be floating through space when the Sun goes into its red giant and engulfs the Earth. Eventually they may hit something or get sucked into a black hole, but they could still exist for billions or even trillions of years after the Earth is gone and the S
Re: (Score:2)
It's harder than you'd think.
We have precise trajectory data, so a future craft should be able to catch up. That's not the problem. It's turning around again: The delta-V needs would be huge.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Probably not. It's been out there for nearly 50 years. Even if they did, they'd probably find a note in its place - Switched the original with this Sgt Peppers Lonely Harts Club Band record. Laying on top of the stack is Twilight Time.
Perfect Technology (Score:2)
Even today, you could make a really good case for using a record. All you really need to make it play is a paper cone and a needle. I bet a rolled up leaf and a thorn would even work. It's not the best way, but it would certainly let somebody know what was coming out of the "amplifier" was non-random, and worthy of attention.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, if you're talking content for primitives, you better give it a reentry/landing system and aim it at a planet considered likely to have life.
Oh geez, are we now to become the monolith aliens from 2001? ;)
Re: (Score:2)
LOL...Why not? The idea that slimy green things might be undulating around our li'l Voyager is kind of inspiring, isn't it?
To be honest, though, I wasn't thinking it would have to be primitives. It's just a very direct system...you wouldn't have to figure out what kind of power supply, or have something complicated to make it produce sound. As long as they could read a pictogram, they'd know enough to make noise with it.
The book was better... (Score:4, Informative)
...than the blog post.
Released in the 1978, "Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record" is a great book with most of the record's images and a bunch of cool info. I have a copy - very fun reading.
(Posted as FYI for those who didn't know)
Aliens will never see it (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I vote no. Let it go and build a big tourist trap coasing along a few miles away, like will eventually be done with the moon landing locations.
Long lasting DVD (Score:2)
From the summary: "Etched in copper, plated with gold, and sealed in aluminum cases, the records are expected to remain intelligible for more than a billion years, making them the longest-lasting objects ever crafted by human hands."
All while existing in the interstellar cold and radiation of space. Wow. I'd be stoked if they could make a terrestrial, commercial storage medium which could last a fraction as long. We've got too much data for stone tablets.
Re: (Score:2)
Technical garbage (Score:2)
This is a poor description of how a (piezo-electric) crystal pickup works; and a crystal pickup is inferior to the various sorts of magnetic pickups.
Expected to Last for a BILLION YEARS! Really?!? (Score:2)
I can see the spiel that a salesman would have to get me to buy an extended warranty on that....
"But, you never know if you're going to fly too close to a star, or even a black hole... if that happens, the accidental damage coverage will replace it for a small fee. Remember you have to pay for return shipping though."
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
At some point he just asked her to marry him out of the blue, over the phone, no acknowledged romance previously, just getting along well as friends on the record.
Her description is available from googling.