Voyager Gold Record Panorama

The Voyagers 1 and 2 spacecrafts, both launched in the late 1970s, carry identical "golden" records on their journey through interstellar space. These records are 12-inch discs made from gold-plated copper and hold a variety of information about Earth and its inhabitants. Included in this data are greetings in 60 different languages, music samples from various cultures and periods of history, and a selection of natural and artificial sounds from our planet. Additionally, they contain electronic information that, if discovered by a sufficiently advanced civilization, could be converted into diagrams and photographs.

Each golden record is housed within a protective gold-plated aluminum jacket. This jacket serves two purposes: it defends the record from micrometeorite impacts, and its covers are engraved with instructions on how to play the record. These instructions appear on both the inner and outer surfaces of the cover to account for potential erosion over time. As of now, both Voyager probes, each carrying a golden record, have exited our solar system and are navigating the vast expanses of interstellar space.