OSSmileIn 1977, a small team led by Carl Sagan had a beautifully impractical idea. We were about to fling two probes — Voyager 1 and 2 — past the outer planets and, eventually, out of the solar system entirely. They would drift through interstellar space essentially forever. So Sagan’s team thought: if we’re sending a bottle into the cosmic ocean, we should put a message in it.
They made a record. A literal, gold-plated, plays-on-a-turntable record. And they bolted one to each probe. 💿🌌
What’s on humanity’s mixtape?
A staggering, tender little portrait of everything, crammed onto one disc:
There are greetings in 55 languages (one, in ancient Akkadian, hasn’t been a spoken tongue for millennia). There’s whale song, a heartbeat, rain, a baby’s first cry, footsteps, laughter, and — recorded specifically for this — the sound of a kiss. There’s Bach and Beethoven and Blind Willie Johnson and Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode, because of course there is.
The instructions for how to play it are etched right onto the cover — a little pictogram diagram, a message to whoever, or whatever, finds it.
The part that gets everyone
While making the record, Sagan and the creative director Ann Druyan fell in love. Days after they privately decided to marry, Druyan went into a lab and had her brainwaves and heartbeat recorded — while thinking, among other things, about being in love.
That recording is on the disc. So among the data drifting through interstellar space right now is the electrical pattern of a human falling in love, sealed in gold, addressed to no one and everyone. 💞
Why this is on a good-news blog
Because it’s the most hopeful thing we’ve ever done with no expectation of reward. Nobody really thinks aliens will find it. The odds are basically zero, and we did it anyway — spent the effort to be kind and curious and generous to a stranger we’ll never meet, just in case.
Both Voyagers have now crossed out of the solar system. The records are still out there, still perfectly readable, still carrying a kiss and a heartbeat and Chuck Berry into the dark. They’ll outlast the pyramids. They’ll probably outlast Earth. And the message is, essentially: we were here, and we were lovely. 🌌💛
