Messages from Earth to the Cosmos

The Golden Record cover shown with its extraterrestrial instructions. Credit: NASA/JPL

A Symbolic Blueprint: The Upper Left Corner At a glance, a visual guide to the phonograph record and stylus is etched, poised to play the record’s symphony. Binary code encircles it, revealing the time for one rotation – 3.6 seconds, in units as minuscule as 0.70 billionths of a second, akin to a hydrogen atom’s transition rhythm. This artwork signals a journey from the record’s outer rim inwards. Beneath, a side view maps the record and stylus, featuring a binary code disclosing the time to relish one side – approximately an hour.

Decoding the Essence: The Upper Right Region Insight into crafting images from the recorded signals lies here. A pinnacle graph signifies the signal at an image’s outset. This waveform births the picture – a cascade of vertical lines akin to TV’s horizontal ones. Numerals mark lines 1, 2, and 3 in binary. A minuscule pulse of 8 milliseconds births a line. Below, a blueprint unfolds – interlaced vertical lines forming a complete image. Just beneath, an emblem replicates the inaugural picture, aiding receivers in signal decoding. A circular motif ensures the right image ratio.

The Voyager spacecraft showcasing where the Golden Record is mounted. Credit: NASA/JPL

Celestial Signposts: The Lower Left and Right Corners An age-old interstellar map rests in the lower left – 14 pulsars pinpointing the solar system’s locale. Their rhythmic beats echo, signifying cosmic signatures. In the opposite corner, a duo of concentric circles holds a portrayal of the hydrogen atom’s primal states. A line and digit 1 unite them, proposing a fundamental time scale from one state to another – a guide for time, both encoded and decoded.

Echoes of Eternity: A Radioactive Legacy Uranium-238, a radioactive relic, is electroplated onto the cover. Its whispering decay into offspring isotopes crafts an extraterrestrial chronometer. Half-life dances – 4.51 billion years, mirroring a celestial clock. A small plate on the record’s exterior bears a hidden truth – the epochs of launch, captured in the throes of a universe’s heartbeat.

Source From : https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/..