Talk:Voyager Golden Record

message: I have now inverted the image of the disc so that it matches the diagram below. - Lee M 14:21, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Since there is a uranium lining on the record, does this mean it is radioactive and could be harmful for use? Let's say a human were to find the record and touch it and such, would they suffer from radiation poisoning? 76.116.109.221 (talk) 23:16, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Radioactivity?

message: Originally based on public domain text from the NASA Website (http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/goldenrec.html), where selected images and sounds from the record can be found. Much of the Voyager records, however, is only available in compiled form to extraterrestrials for copyright reasons.
What does this mean? Gaurav 15:13, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there's copyrighted material in this article. See http://re-lab.net/welcome/ for the original text. I think the text about the languages is taken over. --U:Dgb 18:14, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Copyright Reasons?

message: From the article:
:The Voyagers will take about 40,000 years to come close to another star
They will be a mere 2.3 light years away from us. The distance to the next star is 4.3 light years, so they will be not at all "close" to another star. Does anyone know to which star they are approximately travelling? 
It's stated in the article. 
Stars are not fixed in position. The closest star *at the moment* is 4.3lY away. As it happens, the star that Voyager will make its closest approach to is travelling *towards us* somewhat faster than Voyager is travelling away from us.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.15.151.163 (talk) 13:33, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: When will they "arrive" ?

message: I'm quite certain that there's a Star Trek novel in which we discover a similar communication from an ancient civilization and the POV character (Picard, I'm pretty sure) muses about the Voyager Record and reveals that when contact was made with Vulcans, Klingons, etc. their scientists were given copies of the record, and none could make heads or tails of it.  Anyone remember this? MBlume 23:04, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Fictional Sighting

message: This may seem like nitpicking, but should fictional events be referred to in the present or the past tense?  The fictional section in this article uses both (in one case, in the same entry, though that's been fixed) - is there Wiki policy on this?  MBlume 23:04, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Fiction

message: There are two sentences that contradict each other in the article:
"As of 2006, the Voyager spacecraft will be the third and fourth human artifacts to escape entirely from the solar system. Pioneers 10 and 11, which were launched in 1972 and 1973 and preceded Voyager in outstripping the gravitational attraction of the Sun"
"Voyager 1 was launched in 1977, passed the orbit of Pluto in 1990, and left the solar system (in the sense of passing the termination shock) in November 2004."
These two sentences use two different definitions of escape from the solar system. The first sentence uses the term to mean reaching escape velocity (it looks like), and the second one uses the termination shock, which neither Pioneer has passed yet.
NHammen 22:24, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Escape From Solar System

message: I changed the format of a reference (adding the 'ref' tag). Now all the references are together but they are duplicated! I can't change it back and I can't find what's wrong... 
polkium 05:29, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Messed footnotes

message: I thought this mission had also sent out images encoded into vinyl, namely one of a woman in a supermarket.  It looked very 70's era.  I used to have the image.  Does anyone know of a package like this being sent into space or am I mistaken?  
-matt
Is this what you are looking for? http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/sceneearth.html Ap William 07:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Images encoded into vinyl?

message: I was wondering if there is any information about the total cost of the project.
:Nothing, compared to the costs of designing and launching the probes themselves. Most of the content on the record didn't involve any copyright fees for this project, and selecting the materials on it wasn't any kind of big bucks affair either. Strausszek (talk) 18:20, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Total cost of project

message: Is there a reason why gold was chosen instead of some other (possibly more durable) metal?
Is gold known to be durable when facing interstellar hazzards?
:Its not actually gold. Its gold plated copper. (Thank you, NASA's web site) As for using gold on it, I have no idea why.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vkeios (talk • contribs) 06:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: it's an efficient reflector and conductor, and it doesn't corrode or tarnish http://www.utilisegold.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.125.110.223 (talk) 18:56, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Choice of gold, instead of some other material?

message: Okay, I've been trying to figure this out, and cross-reference with various sources. A few things need clearing up. Firstly, the layout of the disc should be made explicit - as I understand it one side (facing outwards) is entirely music, and the other contains more music, the messages and sounds, and the video.
Also, is the disc monaural? I assume so, but it would be nice for this to be made explicit.
The number of video images appears slightly uncertain. Nasa, and this article, says 115. The CED site says 116 and says Nasa miscounted, and goldenrecord.org shows 116. CED goes on to say that there were also 6 video text pages, 2 with Carter's message, and 4 with Nasa names - credits, if you will. Although I've not seen any other explicit reference to this - only sources mentioning ambiguously that the disc has a "printed" message from Carter, which in the past I've interpreted to mean that it was printed on/inside the case. Also, apparently, 20 of the images were in colour, encoded as triplets of red/green/blue images, with the rest being just monochrome. So one could say that there were 162 frames, encoding 102 monochrome images and 20 colour images.
The image types should also be clarified - at the moment it hints that they're just photos. It's actually a combination of diagrams, photos and photos with explanatory notes.
The article says "printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim." Don't think that's right - more accurate to say Carter's message was text encoded as video, and Waldheim's message was spoken in the audio section.
Anyone disagree with any of this? --KJBracey (talk) 00:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Clarification/corrections needed

message: I thought we must cleanned the data of the music, specially the issue concearning to the authorship of the recordings. A week ago I've found in the next webpage of the UCLA http://digital.library.ucla.edu/frontera/librarian?ITEMID=CAP_71086_X-41730-D1&SIZE=Medium the possible authorship of "El Cascabel" recording, being wrong the attribution to Lorenzo Barcelata and Mariachi México. I changed the data on the chart in that section.Any questions or changes please let me know
--Beat Boy (talk) 22:31, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Musical Corrections

message: Is the record durable enough to survive the descent through a distant planet's atmosphere?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.89.0.118 (talk) 00:26, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Request for clarification: Heat at entry

message: Is AC+79 3888 in the constellation of Ophiucus?. The AC+79 3888 wiki article says it's in Camelopardalis.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.198.51.37 (talk) 17:15, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: AC+79 3888??

message: Is it in any order at all? Is it in the oder of what's on the disc or something? Also, I noticed that the first mention of the states says 'U.S.' while the next two say 'USA'. Is this inconsistency there for a reason? --Thaddius (talk) 13:13, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Question about the music table

message: In contrast to the discussion on the top of the page, the image of the record's cover still appears upside down for me. It would be nice to have it fixed at some stage, since it mismatches the NASA explanation diagram. 95.208.68.54 (talk) 18:06, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Picture of Cover still upside down

message: The background section contradicts the Voyager 1 article in two ways. The background section for Voyager Golden Record states:
However, the Voyager 1 article clearly expresses that Voyager 1 has both traveled a greater distance than Pioneer 10 and 11:
And the Voyager 1 article states that not even Voyager 1 has managed to leave the solar system "entirely":
(With 3 citations listed, I might add). ialsoagree (talk) 07:07, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: There are several DIFFERENT definitions of what defines the outer boundary of our Solar System. The Sun's gravity dominates near-by interstellar space and some would argue that an object hasn't "left" the Solar System until it is no longer in the Sun's "Hill Sphere". (The classical Hill Sphere definition is limited to satellites, so it needs to be broadened slightly to include the Sun's meander around the center of the Milky Way.) Most would probably agree that the Solar System is bordered by interstellar space (which would better be called the interstellar medium).  The transition zone between the plasma which defines the Solar Wind ("inside" the Solar System) and the plasma of the interstellar medium ("outside" the Solar System) seems to be quite variable and is certainly not close to a spherical shape. The Oort Cloud (which, while we have (strong) evidence of its existence isn't something that we can directly observe (at least, not yet)) is at distances of up to 3 light-years from the Sun (and therefore in interstellar space) yet it is typically considered as being part of the Solar System.  Feel free to believe that Voyager(s) have or have not "truly" left the Solar System. Compare the Oort Cloud at 50,000 to 200,000 AU with Voyager 2 at 115 AU (July 2017); we've got a long way to go, but Voyager will be dead (nonfunctional) within the next decade.98.21.243.87 (talk) 20:42, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradiction with [[Voyager 1]] 

message: this was the 2nd paragraph in materials before i editted it.
The records also had the sentence "To the makers of music – all worlds, all times" handwritten on them. Since this was not in the original disc specification, it almost caused their rejection.
and this is the section of NYT article that is referenced
And after the record was completed, NASA rejected it on technical grounds. Late one night in a New York sound studio, when we’d finished cutting the master, I inscribed the words, “To the makers of music — all worlds, all times,” in the “takeout grooves” next to the label. (The Voyager record is a metal version of the 33 1/3 vinyl records of the day, recorded at half-speed to double its data content. Etching an inscription between the takeout grooves was a trope I’d picked up from John Lennon.) A NASA quality-control officer checked the record against specifications and found that while the record’s size, weight, composition and magnetic properties were all in order, its blueprints made no provision for an inscription.
So the record was rejected as a nonstandard part, and the space agency prepared to replace it with a blank disc. Sagan had to persuade the NASA administrator to sign a waiver before the record could fly.
i'm not 100% happy with what i changed the text to. 
so please change the wording.
i've never been that comfortable writing, and most of my edits involve fixing spelling mistakes, broken links, adding links. mostly just tidying up. 
but the original text didn't make sense. i thought that someone took a pencil, or marker and simply wrote on the gold surface. i read the article referenced and found out what it actually was. 
these sorts of etched inscriptions are common with LPs, often just some sort of serial number or sometimes a signature or message. it's interesting because it combines a small, often overlooked detail of an everyday object (LPs being everyday at the time) and included it on something that has already or will soon leave the solar system.
i know i'm drastically oversharing on this tiny edit. it's just that i do realize that carl sagan himself described it as "handwritten" in episode 6 of cosmos#!*$&^%, and don't want to start another useless and irrational edit war because i'm disagreeing with a word sagan said to describe something he helped make. i greatly admire sagan, but i don't necessarily think he was more knowledgable about music recording, LP production or etching terminology than the person who produced it. 
#!*$&^% bloody hell. i keep forgetting that "youtu(.)be" links are blocked.. so i couldn't include a link to the relevant moment in the video. go here and jump to around 8:28 to see the part where sagan describes the disc.
≈Sensorsweep (talk) 06:25, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Materials - etched not written 

message: One of the Star Trek movies was based on V-ger which the crew of the Enterprise discovered to be Voyager after being intercepted and modified by an alien race, it was on its way back to Earth.
192.119.201.146 (talk) 16:25, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I've tagged the In popular culture section with Template:In popular culture: "Please reorganize this content to explain the subject's impact on popular culture rather than simply listing appearances". Finnusertop (talk | guestbook | contribs) 17:39, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voyager in movies 

message: https://soundcloud.com/nasa/sets/golden-record-greetings-to-the
Victor Grigas (talk) 17:19, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Uhh nice. Upload them to wikimedia commons then. Huritisho 12:50, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Audio from golden record on Soundcloud 

message: The main pages for the space probes do not have their names in itals. Is there a reason they are italicized on this page? Not with all those rocks about (talk) 04:34, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Probe name in italics? 

message: Let us give 'the theoretical aliens' the benefit of the doubt and assume them capable of deducing 'first level interactions with the rest of the galaxy' (the sentient species exploring their solar system and starting to #intentionally# send things beyond it) and making due allowances. 09:55, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assumptions 

message: The disk in the first image appears as a vertical oval. Should be fixed by somebody who knows how. --Janke | Talk 14:26, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: . Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 14:47, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrong aspect 

message: The article says that the material was encoded along with instructions that referenced "binary arithmetic" for decoding. It mentions time intervals in units of 700 picoseconds "expressed in time units of 0.70 billionths of a second, the time period associated with a fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom. "
It's not completely clear how you get from this
to 3.6 seconds
Can someone explain the math?
Mjshulman (talk) 20:54, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Love more information on decoding 

message: The article on Wikipedia states that the Golden Record also carried an hour-long recording of the brainwaves of Ann Druyan.  This is deceiving as the total maximum time sound could be recorded on the Golden Record is roughly 105 minutes, yet the article says the record also has about 90 minutes of music.  The time of the music and a full hour of the brainwaves would be 150 minutes.
I found an article that states the brainwaves were compressed to one minute, in the "Life Signs" section:
     https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-is-on-voyagers-golden-record-73063839/
Please advise if the article on Wikipedia should also state the brainwaves were compressed.  Note the following was in the Smithsonian article:
"Compressed into a minute-long segment, the brain waves sound, writes Druyan, like a 'string of exploding firecrackers.'” Dkf12 (talk) 18:45, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brainwaves 

message: If anyone has a particular opinion about the related navigational :Template:Voyager Golden Record, and the form it should take, you may wish to voice an opinion at Template talk:Voyager Golden Record. 
Personally, IMHO these edits are not an improvement and have diminished the usefulness of this navbox. Other editors may have more constructive ideas. Cnbrb (talk) 12:30, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Navbox Template 

message: I get the idea of the “Intergalactic Invitation To Earth”, what I was wondering is if there were certain coordinates given should there be a visitation? 174.91.71.218 (talk) 20:07, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: No, there are not (and calling it "intergalactic" is a stretch). The record's cover contains only the approximate position of the Solar System relative to 14 pulsars in our galaxy. In the images contained on the record, there are two blurry pictures of the Earth to illustrate its appearance and atmospheric composition, but not any coordinates. "Landing coordinates" would require somehow explaining Earth's coordinate system first, and due to the time frames involved (40 thousand years just to fly by a relatively close star), giving any coordinates would be presumptuous.--Daggerstab (talk) 12:29, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Landing Coordinates On Earth 

message: I believe the following is inherently ambiguous:
The Voyager Golden Records are two phonograph records which were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977.
ie: Where one or two records included on each spacecraft?
My attempt at correcting this was undone by Tuneyloon, and it is now ambiguious again, any comments on this? Eparaqutam (talk) 04:41, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ambiguity in initial statement of the Records