Voyager Messages

From TinWiki.org

Golden disc attached to both Voyager spacecraft

The two NASA Voyager space craft each carry a gold plated copper record and an inscription of Earth's location plus what we look like as a species. These identical discs were attached to each space craft in the hope that any intelligent life that finds them in the future would gain some knowledge of our species.

A pure sample of Uranium-238 is also electroplated to each disc to give the finder a way to determine the age of the space craft. Uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.51 billion years.

1 Duplicate Space Craft
2 The Golden Records
3 Also On tinWiki
4 ATS Discussion Threads
5 External Sources

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Duplicate Space Craft

Voyager 1 & 2 were launched in 1977 and are identical in design. They have now past the termination-shock, or the point where the Sun's solar wind no longer has any effect on them. They are now truly moving into deep space. The spacecraft still maintain contact with Earth with the use of a high gain antenna that keeps a lock on our planet through the use of gyroscopic stabilizers that orient them on three axis'.

Each craft carries 10 scientific instruments that still operate to this day, with the exception of the failed Plasma Science instrument on Voyager 1. Most instrumentation on both craft have been selectively turned off by NASA to conserve electric power because they carry three Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators that decay over time. Currently each craft is only supplied with about 315 watts of power so this necessitates the powering down of instruments so supply won't exceed demand.

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The Golden Records

Each disc is actually a phonographic record on the interior side and a plaque with inscriptions on the exterior surface. The discs include a stylus and a description of the speed they need to be rotated at for the message to be heard.

The interior surface includes an introduction from then President Jimmy Carter that states "This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours."

Also on this side includes sounds and messages, and if properly decoded there are 115 images, greetings in 55 languages and 25 musical compositions.

Also, a map of our location is depicted by using 14 pulsars to centralize our solar system and a depiction of where our world is located within the solar system. This also came under criticism out of fear that we might be giving too much information and inviting trouble from interstellar species.

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