Back in 1977, geek heroes Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan headed up the team that created the golden record — gold-plated copper disc that serves as a sort of time capsule for Earth, in the event that some alien species finds and explores the Voyager probe as it wanders out past Pluto’s orbit and into the 40,000-year journey to the nearest planetary system.

NPR rounded up this video a while back that features some of the sounds and images on the Golden Record.

http://vimeo.com/9409571

As Sagan noted, “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.”

[NPR via Mental_floss]