
Scenes from Earth on the Voyager Spacecraft - sama
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/scenes.html
======
ComputerGuru
_Please note that these images are copyright protected. Reproduction without
permission of the copyright holder is prohibited._

Are you f*cking kidding me? How are they copyright protected? As a NASA
project, the images are government owned and therefore public domain.

Moreover, and OBVIOUSLY you're broadcasting them into outerspace. Are you
going to sue the aliens for publishing these images in their newspapers once
contact is made?

Get real.

~~~
ChuckMcM
That is why Voyager 1 has a disk with pictures and Voyager 2 is following with
a suponea from RightHaven to 'Alien Doe' for rights violations :-)

While I don't doubt for a second that should our probe come into the possesion
of another intelligent species, they _would_ publish copies of the pictures on
their version of the Internet, as they aren't signatories of out international
copyright treaties they wouldn't be culpable, however you and I, should we
make say a really cool t-shirt with these designs on them, well we would be
violating someone's copyright.

Someday, assuming someone finds the probe before it gets sucked into a black
hole. It will be a really interesting story.

~~~
eru
Why should it drop into a black hole? It'll probably just go into orbit. Black
holes behave like normal masses, if you don't get too close.

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javert
"The artifact appears to contain data about a civilization on the third planet
of a previously-unknown star system. The inhabitants' bodies are made of metal
or (sometimes) wood, and have wheels affixed for locomotion. The inhabitants
seem to have an obsession with some sort of soft-bodied apparatus, which they
appear to consume as fuel."

\-- _Lord Arquhus, Report to the XVIIth Convention_

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iliis
This gave me one of the best "the world is awesome"-feelings. Seeing how much
we discovered, how much we know, seeing humans being humans, living their
life. And at the same time knowing that we are only a drop in the ocean of the
universe. Barely escaped from the claws of evolution. All these messages a
tiny hope, that maybe someday somewhere somebody/thing will discover them. A
tiny scream against the vastness of interstellar space. And we we wonder.
Wondering how 'they' will perceive us. What will they think of us? Will they
understand us? Like thinking about seeing your girlfriends parents for the
first time. Only on a vastly grander scale...

Hm, sorry for this little anti-rant. Some things are ... not meant to be
captured by words.

~~~
jaaron
Most likely the records will never be discovered. Possibly they will be the
last remaining evidence of humanity's existence, out lasting our civilization,
the last living human, and perhaps even the surface of the earth. In that
sense, I find it interesting and in fact comforting that even millions,
perhaps billions of years after humanity has been erased, we will have at
least left a tiny crumb hinting at our past.

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gacba
Did anyone else dig into the quotes section for "Messages from Earth"?
(<http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/greetings.html>)

This one made me chuckle because all I could think about was the Simpsons
Halloween episode where the aliens have cookbooks about cooking humans:

 _"Friends of space, how are you all? Have you eaten yet? Come visit us if you
have time."_

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dctoedt
The "Mathematical Definitions" photo was fascinating.
<http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/images/image003.gif>

~~~
georgieporgie
I wonder why every alien-oriented mathematical thing I've seen includes
binary. It doesn't seem very important to me to communicate that we understand
base two, versus showing some more advanced mathematical formulas.

~~~
onemoreact
The assumption is they will understand counting dots easily, = sign, then base
2, then another = sign, then base 10. It's to help both with the = sign and
figuring out we use base 10.

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georgecmu
I was more impressed by these images intended for aliens' consumption:
<http://perl.plover.com/yak/12views/img/q01.gif>
<http://perl.plover.com/yak/12views/img/q02.gif> ...
<http://perl.plover.com/yak/12views/img/q23.gif>

Can you decode them?

~~~
lloeki
_spoiler alert, if you want to decode them_

q01.gif counts in dots and associates it with binary X and O. The most often
repeated symbol (like a double-dashed integral) looks like a separator, or
more probably an equal sign. It follows that then rightmost side of each
equation is numbers too, in decimal form since 10 is one followed by zero.
Underside are a list of prime numbers in base 10. The last line is a Mersenne
prime, precisely 2^3021377-1, which I suppose was among the largest primes
proven at that time. It also conveniently defines minus symbol and exponent
notation by offset.

The XO on top define page number in binary, and also define page orientation.
The middle symbol certainly defines some chapter.

The symbols are certainly so convoluted to resist bit rot and/or tampering,
offering some form of redundancy, and making them unambiguous upon rotation.

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jamesgagan
Neat, but not all pictures are linked. Here's s site that has working links to
all the pictures: <http://re-lab.net/welcome/images.html>

~~~
adrianwaj
<http://re-lab.net/welcome/images/image108.gif>

Should've had words "Oh Shit" placed at top, and some graphical representation
of defecation.

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martinkallstrom
Interesting to think about how this was conceived as representative of human
culture: <http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/images/image082.gif>

Who on earth (literally) drinks like that? :)

~~~
egor83
When I was in Catalonia, they said that this container and way of drinking are
both local customs.

They explained it's a heritage from times of plague - this way you drink
without touching (thus contaminating) it.

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mmaunder
Considering the rarity of planets in a habitable part of a galaxy, with a
magnetosphere, favorable chemistry, an atmosphere, oceans, plate tectonics,
single central star, a moon that didn't fall in the roche zone and break up to
form rings that bombard us, etc.. the creators of Voyager might have thought
twice about giving out that map to our awesome little life supporting planet.
The return message might be (as suggested in Contact) a guide to their
colonization procedures.

~~~
ghshephard
This has been well covered - but the odds of someone finding Voyager, as
compared to the approximately 30 Light Year Radius of Radio Energy we've been
pumping out, is a number which pretty much approximates zero.

~~~
mmaunder
Actually V1 has a 20W transmitter on-board that will stay operational until
around 2025. It's busy crossing into the Heliopause which means it's a
transmitter far from the noise and obstructions of the solar system. The craft
will fully cross into the Heliopause in around 2015 so will have a decade of
transmitting in deep space.

------
DuncanIdaho
It's interesting that we didn't put up any nuclear explosion photos.

As proud as we appear of our technology. Is keeping it a secret a decency or
tactical play?

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majmun
how will alien distinguish this from random noise that is scrached on disk.

~~~
joezydeco
Considering the aliens are examining an interstellar space probe with
manufactured materials and systems, perhaps they could intelligently conclude
that the disc isn't there for any other purpose than to contain information?

~~~
majmun
but still you need to interpret that data, which can be done in infinite
number of ways

~~~
scg
I'm assuming that's what this metal plate
[[http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/images/golden_rec_sid...](http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/images/golden_rec_sidebar.gif)]
and the calibration circle
[<http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/images/image001.gif>] are for.

~~~
mirkules
Can you explain what the metal plate and calibration circle are for? (edit: I
meant, how do they work?)

To me, the plate looks like Death Star blueprints, so I'm a little relieved to
hear that it's not what I originally thought :)

~~~
joezydeco
Going from memory, the plate defines a base unit of measurement based on the
frequency of the Hydrogen atom (lower right). Hopefully every space-travelling
civilization has got that one down on paper.

Then it goes into how to play the record back (the speed is drawn around the
edge of the record), then how to demodulate the waves, then how to convert the
data into scanlines and plot them in a square and get to the calibration
circle (middle of the disc).

It's kind of quaint that we sent this record of civilization out as gold-
plated LP record. Very 70's.

~~~
mbreese
> It's kind of quaint that we sent this record of civilization out as gold-
> plated LP record. Very 70's.

Now, we'd probably just send an iPad with instructions for recharging it (or a
solar charger). Or even better, just send an e-ink Kindle... just make sure to
turn it off first.

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mvkel
This seems more like an exercise for NASA engineers to succinctly summarize
the human race, instead of an intuitive discovery tool for aliens.

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adrianwaj
Maybe a book of pics would have been better, or some microfilm - that is if
the aliens can even see in our spectrum.

~~~
dekz
But this disk, unless I'm mistaken, can be updated on the fly. It also
provides a primitive starting point to read our current storage mediums, which
if the world were to end in 2012 could provide an alien civilisation a glimpse
of what we were (if they take the journey).

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noduerme
So, other than "gold plated LP", what format this was this actually encoded
in? It's designed to play back completely analog, scanned to a screen? Are the
pixels shown only once or scanned repeatedly? What kind of screen / machine
keeps those pixels lit long enough to see?

Does NASA actually have a terminal that reads this thing somewhere?

~~~
jberryman
Here ya go: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record#Playback>

