Delight Springs

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Music of the spheres

Voyager 2 was launched 38 years ago today, towing a golden (actually copper) record featuring the sites, sounds, voices, and music of earth.
The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University, et. al. Dr. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind and thunder, birds, whales, and other animals. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras...
Would an alien intelligence listen to music, or even have ears? Mathematics is supposed to be the universal language, but this is way more fun to imagine. ET be goode!

"The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced spacefaring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet."
And about musical sophistication in the cosmos.

Gene Roddenberry imagined our first warp drive ride into space accompanied by Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride." Wouldn't it be nice!

6 am/6:11, 67/82

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