golden record—and record player tagged posts

Artist’s concept of NASA’s Voyager spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Are we alone? Forty years ago, NASA rocket scientists sought to answer this question by launching the Voyager spacecraft, twin unmanned spaceships that would travel further than any human-made object in history. When Voyager 1 and 2 launched about two weeks apart in 1977 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, scientists knew little about the outer planets in our solar system, and could hardly imagine the scope of their upcoming space odyssey.

“None of us knew, when we launched 40 years ago, that anything would still be working, and continuing on this pioneering journey,” said Voyager project scientist Ed Stone...