Author Topic: The Gold Record  (Read 5777 times)

Offline Zoomer30

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The Gold Record
« on: 11/11/2008 01:23 am »
Just think what we could do now.  The Gold MP3 Player?  I look at that gold record that is on the Voyager craft and just shiver.  LPs are so antique they are back in vogue again :D 

We could probably get a greeting from every person on Earth now with MP3, along with a small photo of each person :)  Just one more reason why there is no reason to try to get to even the nearest star now:  Things progress back home and you end up getting PAST by ships that left years and years after you. Technology has made the Gold Record look very old indeed.

Offline ugordan

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #1 on: 11/11/2008 10:21 am »
And how would you explain to some alien civilization how to decode MP3 files? There's a reason an ordinary LP was chosen. You stick a needle in the grooves and it plays the audio, simple as that. All you need to do is amplify the sound. You don't have to be a genius to figure out the LP is grooved and modulated in some way. What does a string of 1s and 0s in an MP3 file tell you?
« Last Edit: 11/11/2008 10:22 am by ugordan »

Offline rsnellenberger

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #2 on: 11/11/2008 02:51 pm »
Did they include a stylus with the disk?

Offline ugordan

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #3 on: 11/11/2008 02:57 pm »
Did they include a stylus with the disk?

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/goldenrec.html
Quote
Each record is encased in a protective aluminum jacket, together with a cartridge and a needle.

Offline Lawntonlookirs

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #4 on: 11/11/2008 05:07 pm »
It would be interesting (sometime in history) to see a result of this project.  Hopefully it wouldn't be destroyed as an unidentified flying object.
Everyman is my superior in that I may learn from him.  Albert Einstein

Offline Namechange User

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #5 on: 11/11/2008 05:17 pm »
It would be interesting (sometime in history) to see a result of this project.  Hopefully it wouldn't be destroyed as an unidentified flying object.

Wasn't that the plot of the first Star Trek movie?  Careful what you wish for....;)
Enjoying viewing the forum a little better now by filtering certain users.

Offline iamlucky13

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #6 on: 11/11/2008 06:10 pm »
Did they include a stylus with the disk?

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/goldenrec.html
Quote
Each record is encased in a protective aluminum jacket, together with a cartridge and a needle.

There's a further link that describes the cover of the record, which is basically instructions for how to play it, as well as an "artist's signature" (the position of the earth in relation to 14 pulsars), and a "copyright date" (an ultra-pure coating of U-238, the decay of which indicates the time elapsed since it was purified).

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/goldenrec1.html

Although the odds of anyone ever finding it are hopelessly minuscule, assuming anyone is out there to begin with, it was a really interesting exercise in simplifying communications down to fundamental principles. For example, time isn't described in seconds, but in state transitions of a hydrogen atom (a form of atomic clock periodicity), and the first picture on the disc is a simple circle to act as a universal test pattern. Presumably even if an alien examining the record had no idea what to make of the scratchings on cover, they would notice the pattern of the bumps on the record as being sinusoidal in nature, and be able to reverse engineer the contents from there.

Offline Analyst

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #7 on: 11/11/2008 06:30 pm »
It would be interesting (sometime in history) to see a result of this project.  Hopefully it wouldn't be destroyed as an unidentified flying object.

Wasn't that the plot of the first Star Trek movie?  Careful what you wish for....;)

Most probably humans themselves will pick up the Voyagers in the future and put them into a museum, or at least visit them and let them fly along their trajectory for historical/archeological reasons. Even in 1,000 or 2,000 years they won't have covered much distance from the solar system, but our technology will be ... well I can't imagine.

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Offline ugordan

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #8 on: 11/11/2008 06:34 pm »
Most probably humans themselves will pick up the Voyagers in the future and put them into a museum, or at least visit them and let them fly along their trajectory for historical/archeological reasons. Even in 1,000 or 2,000 years they won't have covered much distance from the solar system, but our technology will be ... well I can't imagine.

Once they stop transmitting, trajectory uncertainties 1000 years from now will sure make the search area volume huge! Finding them would really be quite a feat in itself. Assuming, of course, human kind lasts that long.
« Last Edit: 11/11/2008 06:34 pm by ugordan »

Offline Oersted

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #9 on: 11/12/2008 03:59 pm »
Will the Pluto mission overtake the Voyagers? - It is going at a pretty good clip. And did they fit any greetings to it?

Offline nacnud

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #10 on: 11/12/2008 04:08 pm »
How do you know the pressure, composition and temperature of the atmosphere the record needs to be played in in order to reproduce the right sounds?

Offline SpaceCat

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #11 on: 11/12/2008 04:16 pm »
Presumably even if an alien examining the record had no idea what to make of the scratchings on cover, they would notice the pattern of the bumps on the record as being sinusoidal in nature, and be able to reverse engineer the contents from there.

I'm sure it was considered- that would also allow an intelligence whose auditory or sensory range was confined to sub or ultra sonic areas to transpose everything up or down to 'hear' it..... something not so easy to do if the encoding were digital without complete understanding of the sampling rates.

Offline Analyst

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #12 on: 11/12/2008 04:17 pm »
1) Will the Pluto mission overtake the Voyagers? - It is going at a pretty good clip.
2) And did they fit any greetings to it?

1) No. Both Voyagers escape faster because of their gravity assists.
2) Kinda: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/overview/piPerspective.php?page=piPerspective_10_23_2008

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Offline iamlucky13

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #13 on: 11/12/2008 08:18 pm »
How do you know the pressure, composition and temperature of the atmosphere the record needs to be played in in order to reproduce the right sounds?

The sounds will still come out at the same frequencies, but the aliens might not experience them directly if they aren't adapted similarly to us. They could still, however, study the patterns in the playback and maybe make some sense out of it. If you ran the output through spectral analysis as sound or even just as an analog signal, you'd see definite patterns that would make it clear they're intentional. If the aliens didn't use sound for communication, however, the point of the audio signals might be lost on them.

The audio is only one portion of the data. There's also 115 images, rendered the same way as the test circle, that attempt to describe us as a species.

I believe there is a CD iso file available that mimics the content of the record, although in digital format for human readability, obviously. I'm going to look around to see if I can find a copy.

Offline AndrewSTS

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #14 on: 11/14/2008 06:31 pm »
Jusy send them gold :)

Offline simonbp

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #15 on: 11/15/2008 06:01 pm »

1) No. Both Voyagers escape faster because of their gravity assists.

Well, after its gravity assist from Jupiter, New Horizons is actually traveling ~600 m/s faster than Voyager 2, so it may overtake the Voyagers before reaching the Sun's Hill radius (~260,000 AU)...

http://www.heavens-above.com/solar-escape.asp

Simon ;)

Offline ugordan

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #16 on: 11/15/2008 06:13 pm »
Well, after its gravity assist from Jupiter, New Horizons is actually traveling ~600 m/s faster than Voyager 2, so it may overtake the Voyagers before reaching the Sun's Hill radius (~260,000 AU)...

It will never catch up to the Voyagers.

Offline AresWatcher

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #17 on: 11/18/2008 10:22 pm »
No point now. We know there's no aliens within 100s of light years.
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Offline DMeader

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #18 on: 11/19/2008 12:05 am »
No point now. We know there's no aliens within 100s of light years.

Do we now!!! I love encountering such absolute certainty about something so totally unknowable.

Offline Analyst

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Re: The Gold Record
« Reply #19 on: 11/19/2008 06:23 am »

1) No. Both Voyagers escape faster because of their gravity assists.

Well, after its gravity assist from Jupiter, New Horizons is actually traveling ~600 m/s faster than Voyager 2, so it may overtake the Voyagers before reaching the Sun's Hill radius (~260,000 AU)...

http://www.heavens-above.com/solar-escape.asp

Simon ;)

No way. New Horizons is still slowed down every day by the suns gravity (as are the Voyagers, but by much less, because they are far more away already). New Horizons hyperbolic escape velocity is smaller than from eighter Voyager. It won't catch up.

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