Voyager at the edge of solar system

[emeraldknight47]

Actually...it's going to amass so much knowledge that it will become self aware and called itself V-Ger. Then return to Earth seeking it's creator.

That's only if it runs into The Borg!!!!! Yikes!!!!!!!!

[Brazoo]

It's all amazing, but the most fascinating aspect to me is how this might fill in some gaps about where the "edge" of our solar system even is - and what that really means.

[Godzilla]

I agree, Voyger is amazing. Something I'm really proud we did.

[Figuremod73]

Voyager is probably the best use of technology and money we done with the space program.

[samurainoir]

Once it runs out of juice in the 2020's, it basically becomes a message in a bottle. The Gold Record (as seen in the movie Starman) contains greetings in 55 languages, music, images and a message from the leader of the free world, President Jimmy Carter. I'm thinking that by the time an alien intelligence does stumble across it, humanity might have been replaced by apes or intelligent roaches. Maybe Wall-E will still be around to greet them?
Wikimedia Error

[Hector]

Record???

What if the aliens only use Blu-ray?

[BlackKnight]

Why am I deleting political posts in a space science thread? Sheesh, peeps!

What ??? ....

[Gorn Captain]

Record???

What if the aliens only use Blu-ray?

The aliens will say "This craft comes with a cool free gift! A frisbee!!!!"

[Brazoo]

Wow - stereo setup instructions really aren't NASA's thing.

[Gorn Captain]

When we are arrive at an alien planet, they'll be worshipping "the shiny golden disk from the stars"...

Then the leader will walk up to us and speak the historic words: "You did bring a record player, right?"

[samurainoir]

The Pioneer series probes had a golden 8-track stashed on them.

What is most likely is that a race of androids with the personality of Carl Sagan's wife will be greeting humanity when they do eventually take to the stars. And they will want to speak to our leader... Jimmy Carter.

Carl Sagan chaired the committee that determined the contents and had his wife's brain wave scan included on the golden record.

[johnmiic]

I couldn't find a bigger pic but here goes:

[Hector]

I hope they can read English, lol.

[Brazoo]

The E.T.s don't even get the English! They have to go by the pics, which attempts to depict mind bogglingly complex things like running time. Even if the alien beings figure out how to hear sounds from the record they have to know the speed to get the sound correct, right? Too fast and it's pitch will be too high, too slow and the pitch will be too low.

The English says "Playing time, one side = one hour" which sounds simple enough - but "one hour" would probably be a completely irrelevant way to measure time for an alien. We basically derived on the length of an hour by dividing an Earth day into 24 - but there's no way of knowing how long an alien day would be, or how they would measure time. Their solution was to illustrate each rotation as "expressed in time units of 0.70 billionths of a second, the time period associated with a fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom."

I find it hard to properly balance the tonearm on my turntable - so good luck to the aliens!

[Brazoo]

We really should redo this mission with an iPod.