[X] My Assistant

[ljk4-1]

Voyager - A message from Earth

Saturday 19 November 2005

Summary

Jon Lomberg is an artist who could be called portrait painter to the cosmos. He illustrated most of Carl Sagan's books and articles and his paintings and multi-media presentations of astronomy have made him well known around the world. He's talking about the message he designed which was sent on Voyager II from the people of Earth to whoever might hear it in space.

Program Transcript:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s1505986.htm

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Well I prefer the Pioneer plaque ... Seeing the Voyager plaque I really needed some extra explanation about the signs on it, which are mostly directives how to play the 'record' ...
Superb initiative though by the late Dr Carl Sagan !
Talking about this, it remains 'strange' why the New Horizons didn't bare such a message, all beit some small electronic one ( simular to the names of Earthlings it carries )

[ljk4-1]

Another good reason to have plaques and records on our space probes...

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[Jeff7]

Another good reason to have plaques and records on our space probes...

So I guess future spacecraft, in addition to a message of peace, should also include an apology.

Some options for what happens with our spacecraft, in order of probability:
1) Never found, either drifting in the emptiness of space, or destroyed by various phenomena, such as stars.

2) Found by a race so advanced that they immediately recognize the nature of the spacecraft and are able to hand it over to a computer that can analyze and decipher it in a few minutes.

3) A chunk of it, most likely the RTG, survives entry through a planet's atmosphere. Primitive lifeforms, similar to homo erectus or Neanderthals in intelligence, find the object after seeing a ray of light from the sky fall to the ground. Perhaps the record even survives in the wake of the disintegrating high gain antenna. They become religious artifacts, and one or all of the symbols are determined to be holy, like the cross in Christianity. After many religious wars over which is the true holy object, the shiny record or the vaned RTG, they finally find Earth and obliterrate us all for causing so much death in their world.

4) A race around our technological level finds it, and takes offense to the naked humans onboard, but they're never able to figure out any of the other symbols, only that the people from that place comprise a wholly obscene race.