Cosmos, Voyager and the Golden Record: Ann Druyan in conversation with Brian Cox
Channel: British Library
Date: 2021-04-15

Ann Druyan is one of the most important space science communicators of all time. In this special event she talks to Professor Brian Cox about life, the Universe, and nearly everything in between.

Ann co-wrote the 1980 documentary series Cosmos, hosted by Carl Sagan, whom she married in 1981. She created, produced the 2014 sequel series, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey and Cosmos: Possible Worlds, and penned the accompanying books. As well as several book collaborations with Carl Sagan, the couple co-wrote and produced the film Contact starring Jodie Foster (1997).

Ann was the Creative Director of NASA's Voyager Interstellar Message Project, the celebrated ‘golden record’ affixed to both the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes in 1977. Containing a rich selection of sound as well as images, these discs were designed as an audio time capsule or ‘message’ in a bottle’, taking an insight into human civilisation far beyond the solar system, and capable for existing for as much as a billion years. The photographs taken from Voyager 1 looking back from a distance of 3.7 billion miles famously show Earth as a ‘pale blue dot’.

Professor Brian Cox CBE is Professor of Particle Physics at Manchester University, The Royal Society Professor for Public Engagement in Science and a Fellow of the Royal Society. As a broadcaster, he has presented a number of highly acclaimed science programmes for the BBC, boosting the popularity of subjects such as astronomy and physics and garnering two Royal Television Society awards and a Peabody Award for Wonders Of The Solar System. His BBC series, Forces of Nature aired in 2016, which was followed in 2019 by The Planets, which was one of the most watched BBC 2 programmes that year. He has also authored a series of best-selling books, including the widely acclaimed Human Universe and Universal: A Guide to the Cosmos, and is recognised as the foremost communicator for all things scientific, holding world records for his sell out tours. He is also known for his previous music career with the band D:Ream.

Supported by the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library.