Editing Voyager Golden Record (section)

== Contents ==
{{Main|Contents of the Voyager Golden Record}}

The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by [[Carl Sagan]] of [[Cornell University]]. The selection of content for the record took almost a year. Sagan and his associates assembled 116 images (one used for calibration) and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, thunder and animals (including the songs of [[Birdsong|birds]] and [[whale sound|whales]]). To this they added audio content to represent humanity: spoken greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages, including a spoken greeting in English by [[United Nations|U.N.]] [[Secretary-General of the United Nations|Secretary-General]] [[Kurt Waldheim]] and a greeting by Sagan's six-year-old son, [[Nick Sagan|Nick]]; other human sounds, like footsteps and laughter (Sagan's);<ref name="TA-20170630" /> the inspirational message ''[[Per aspera ad astra]]'' in [[Morse code]]; and musical selections from different cultures and eras. The record also includes a printed message from U.S. president [[Jimmy Carter]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Gambino |first1=Megan |title=What Is on Voyager's Golden Record? |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-is-on-voyagers-golden-record-73063839/ |website=Smithsonian Magazine |access-date=10 May 2021 |language=en}}</ref>
{{Listen
| filename    = Voyager Golden Record greeting in English.ogg
| title       = "Hello from the children of Planet Earth"
| description = A child's greeting in English recorded on the Voyager Golden Record ([[Nick Sagan]], aged 6)
| type        = speech
| image = 
}}
The collection of images includes many photographs and diagrams, both in black and white and color. The first images are of scientific interest, showing mathematical and physical quantities, the [[Solar System]] and its planets, [[DNA]], and human [[Outline of human anatomy|anatomy]] and [[Human reproduction|reproduction]]. Care was taken to include not only pictures of humanity, but also some of animals, insects, plants and landscapes. Images of humanity depict a broad range of cultures. These images show food, architecture, and humans in portraits as well as going about their day-to-day lives. Many pictures are annotated with one or more indications of scales of time, size, or mass. Some images contain indications of [[chemical composition]]. All measures used on the pictures are defined in the first few images using physical references that are likely to be consistent anywhere in the [[universe]].

The musical selection is also varied, featuring works by composers such as [[J. S. Bach]] (interpreted by [[Glenn Gould]]), [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]], [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]] (played by the [[Budapest String Quartet]]), and [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]]. The disc also includes music by [[Guan Pinghu]], [[Blind Willie Johnson]], [[Chuck Berry]], [[Kesarbai Kerkar]], [[Valya Balkanska]], and electronic composer [[Laurie Spiegel]], as well as [[Azerbaijani folk music]] ([[Mugham]]) by oboe player [[Kamil Jalilov]].<ref>Anne Kressler. [https://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/22_folder/22_articles/22_extraterrestrial.html Azerbaijani Music Selected for Voyager Spacecraft] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190703235101/http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/22_folder/22_articles/22_extraterrestrial.html |date=2019-07-03 }} // Azerbaijan International. — Summer 1994 (2.2). — P. 24-25.</ref><ref>[[Natalie Angier]]. The Canon: The Beautiful Basics of Science. — Faber & Faber, 2009. — P. 408.</ref><ref>Mike Wehner. [https://bgr.com/2017/11/28/golden-record-voyager-nasa-buy/ You can now buy the NASA audio record that we sent to aliens] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190712003112/https://bgr.com/2017/11/28/golden-record-voyager-nasa-buy/ |date=2019-07-12 }} // bgr.com. — November 28th, 2017.</ref><ref>Aida Huseynova. New images of Azerbaijani Mugham in Twentieth Century // The Music of Central Asia. — Indiana University Press, 2016. — P. 400.</ref><ref>Margaret Kaeter. Nations in Transitions: The Caucasian Republics. — Infobase Publishing, 2004. — P. 91.</ref> The inclusion of Berry's "[[Johnny B. Goode]]" was controversial, with some{{who|date=January 2025}} claiming that rock music was "adolescent", to which Sagan replied, "There are a lot of adolescents on the planet."<ref name=Smithsonian>{{cite web |title=What Is on Voyager's Golden Record? |first=Megan |last=Gambino |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-is-on-voyagers-golden-record-73063839/?no-ist=&page=4 |date=April 22, 2012 |work=[[The Smithsonian]] |access-date=December 7, 2015}}</ref> The selection of music for the record was completed by a team composed of Carl Sagan as project director, [[Linda Salzman Sagan]], [[Frank Drake]], [[Alan Lomax]], [[Ann Druyan]] as creative director, artist [[Jon Lomberg]], ethnomusicologist [[Robert E. Brown]], [[Timothy Ferris]] as producer, and [[Jimmy Iovine]] as sound engineer.<ref name=Smithsonian/><ref name="TimFerris">{{cite magazine|last1=Ferris|first1=Timothy|title=How the Voyager Golden Record Was Made|url=https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/voyager-golden-record-40th-anniversary-timothy-ferris|access-date=15 November 2017|magazine=The New Yorker|date=20 August 2017}}</ref> It also included the sounds of humpbacked whales from the 1970 album by [[Roger Payne]], ''[[Songs of the Humpback Whale (album)|Songs of the Humpback Whale]]''.<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1121/1.387428|title=The resounding humpback|year=1982|last1=Roth|first1=Mark|journal=The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America|volume=71|issue=2|page=513|bibcode=1982ASAJ...71..513R}}</ref>

The Golden Record also carries an hour-long recording of the brainwaves of Ann Druyan, compressed into a minute of audio.<ref name=Smithsonian/> During the recording of the brainwaves, Druyan thought of many topics, including Earth's history, civilizations and the problems they face, and what it was like to fall in love.<ref>{{cite book |last=Sagan |first=Carl |title=Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium |publisher=Random House |location=New York |year=1997 |isbn=0-679-41160-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/billionsbillions00saga }}</ref>

After NASA had received [[Pioneer plaque#Criticism|criticism over the nudity on the Pioneer plaque]] (line drawings of a naked man and woman), the agency chose not to allow Sagan and his colleagues to include a photograph of a nude man and woman on the record. Instead, only a silhouette of the couple was included.<ref>Lomberg, Jon, "Pictures of Earth" in {{cite book |last=Sagan |first=Carl |title=Murmurs of Earth |publisher=Ballantine Books |location=New York |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-34528-396-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/murmursofearthvo00saga }}</ref> However, the record does contain "Diagram of vertebrate evolution", by [[Jon Lomberg]], with drawings of an anatomically correct naked male and naked female, showing external organs.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/sceneearth.html |title=Voyager Record Photograph Index |website=Jet Propulsion Laboratory |publisher=NASA | access-date=December 20, 2014}}</ref> The person waving on the diagram was also changed: on the Pioneer plaque, the man is waving, while on the "Vertebrate evolution" image, the woman is waving.

The [[pulsar]] map and hydrogen molecule diagram are shared in common with the [[Pioneer plaque]].

The 116 images (one used for calibration) are encoded in analogue form and composed of 512 vertical lines. The remainder of the record is audio, designed to be played at {{frac|16|2|3}} revolutions per minute.

[[Jimmy Iovine]], who was still early in his career as a music producer, served as sound engineer for the project at the recommendation of [[John Lennon]], who was contacted to contribute but was unable to take part.<ref name="Ferris">{{cite magazine |last1=Ferris |first1=Timothy |title=How the Voyager Golden Record Was Made |url=https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/voyager-golden-record-40th-anniversary-timothy-ferris |access-date=November 15, 2017 |magazine=The New Yorker |date=August 20, 2017}}</ref>

Sagan's team wanted to include the [[The Beatles|Beatles]] 1969 song "[[Here Comes the Sun]]" on the record, but the record company [[EMI]], which held the copyrights, declined.<ref>{{cite news|first=David|last=Shribman|url=https://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-review-vinyl-frontier-jonathan-scott-20190711-story.html|title=Review: The Voyager spacecraft holds a golden record for aliens. 'Vinyl Frontier' tells why|newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|date=July 18, 2019|access-date=November 25, 2019}}</ref> In the 1978 book ''Murmurs of Earth'', the failure to secure permission for the song is cited as one of the legal challenges faced by the team compiling the Voyager Golden Record.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/28apr_voyager2|first=Tony|last=Phillips|title=Voyager, The Love Story|publisher=NASA Science|date=April 28, 2011|access-date=November 25, 2019|archive-date=November 2, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191102052552/https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/28apr_voyager2|url-status=dead}}</ref> In the book, Sagan said that the Beatles favoured the idea, but "[they] did not own the copyright, and the legal status of the piece seemed too murky to risk."<ref>{{cite book| last1=Sagan| first1=Carl| year=1978| author-link=Carl Sagan| last2=Drake| first2=Frank D.| author-link2=Frank Drake| last3=Lomberg| first3=Jon| author-link3=Jon Lomberg| last4=Sagan| first4=Linda Salzman| author-link4=Linda Salzman Sagan| last5=Druyan| first5=Ann
| author-link5=Ann Druyan| last6=Ferris| first6=Timothy| author-link6=Timothy Ferris| title=Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record| publisher=Random House| location=New York| isbn=0-394-41047-5}}</ref> When asked about the obstacle presented by EMI with regard to "Here Comes the Sun", despite the artists' wishes, Ann Druyan said in 2015: "Yeah, that was one of those cases of having to see the tragedy of our planet. Here's a chance to send a piece of music into the distant future and distant time, and to give it this kind of immortality, and they're worried about money ... we got this telegram [from EMI] saying that it will be $50,000 per record for two records, and the entire Voyager record cost $18,000 to produce."<ref>{{cite magazine|first=Michael|last=Haskoor|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-golden-record-ann-druyan-interview/|title=A Space Jam, Literally: Meet the Creative Director Behind NASA's 'Golden Record,' an Interstellar Mixtape|magazine=[[Vice (magazine)|Vice]]|date=August 5, 2015|access-date=November 25, 2019}}</ref> However, this was denied in 2017 by [[Timothy Ferris]]; in his recollection, "Here Comes the Sun" was not seriously considered for inclusion.<ref name="Ferris" />

In July 2015, NASA uploaded the audio contents of the record to the audio streaming service [[SoundCloud]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://soundcloud.com/nasa/sets/golden-record-greetings-to-the |title=Greetings to the Universe |via=SoundCloud |access-date=April 20, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://soundcloud.com/nasa/sets/golden-record-sounds-of |title=Sounds of Earth |via=SoundCloud |access-date=April 20, 2016}}</ref>

===Images===
<gallery mode="packed" heights="225px" caption="Select images on the Voyager Golden Record">
File:Voyager golden record 77 supermarket.gif|A woman in a store
File:Voyager golden record 11 jupiter.gif|A photo of [[Jupiter]] with its diameter indicated
File:Voyager golden record 82 feeding.gif| This image depicts humans licking, eating, and drinking as modes of consumption.
File:Voyager golden record 110 arecibo.gif|This is a photograph of the [[Arecibo Observatory]] marked with an indication of scale.
File:Voyager golden record 111 systemoftheworld.gif|This image is a photograph of page 6 from [[Isaac Newton]]{{'}}s ''[[Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica]]'' Volume III, ''De mundi systemate'' (The system of the world).
File:Voyager golden record 13 earth.gif|This is a photograph of Egypt, Red Sea, Sinai Peninsula and the Nile from Earth orbit annotated with chemical composition of Earth's atmosphere.
File:Diagram of vertebrate evolution.gif| A drawing of animals and humans.
</gallery>{{clear}}