Voyager 1977

Voyager's Trajectory

On September 5, 1977 NASA launched a rocket into space. Aboard that rocket, was the Voyager spacecraft, whose mission was to explore the solar system, and beyond. The Voyager had a couple of jobs. One, again, explore the solar system more thoroughly than before (you can only see so much from the surface of the earth) and, possibly, to contact alien life out there. For that second purpose, a record, known as the Golden Record was included on Voyager. On the Golden Record were put songs from Earth from many different cultures, greetings in many different languages, sounds from nature, etc.

The Golden Record aboard The Voyager

The Voyager performed the first part of its job magnificently, and sent back to Earth breathtaking pictures of the outer planets that we could never have seen from earth; the moons of Jupiter, and the rings of Saturn, for example. But will the Golden Record be found by alien life, particularly alien life intelligent to figure out how to play it, and realize that we were here? Honestly, probably not. But that's really not the important thing. We put Voyager out there, and the Golden Record is on it, and the chance is there that it will be found by someone smart. And that's what matters. As the creators of Voyager believe, "Dare Mighty Things."