"In 1977, NASA launched two spacecraft called Voyager to explore the outer solar system and to serve as emissaries of Earth to the stars.
Attached to each spacecraft is a gold-coated copper phonograph record containing a message to possible extraterrestrial civilizations
that may encounter them in some distant space and time-a greeting created by a committee chaired by Cornell astronomer, Carl Sagan."
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2017/10/cornellians-celebrate-voyagers-historic-golden-record
Cornellians celebrate the Voyagers' historic Golden Record
Four decades after NASA's twin Voyager spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral,
about 800 Cornellians gathered at Bailey Hall Oct. 19 to celebrate the unprecedented mission,
its famous Golden Record and the university's role in the mission.
A panel focused on the Golden Record - a 12-inch, gold-covered copper record containing salutations to the universe,
international music and images of life on Earth -
that was affixed to the Voyagers so aliens could grasp something about our world.
The record's shelf life: 1 to 5 billion years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record
The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University.
The selection of content for the record took almost a year.
Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, thunder and animals (including the songs of birds and whales).
To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, spoken greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages, other human sounds, like footsteps and laughter (Sagan's),[1] and printed messages from U.S. president Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim. The record also includes the inspirational message Per aspera ad astra in Morse code.
The collection of images includes many photographs and diagrams both in black and white, and color.
The first images are of scientific interest, showing mathematical and physical quantities, the Solar System and its planets,
DNA, and human anatomy and reproduction. Care was taken to include not only pictures of humanity,
but also some of animals, insects, plants and landscapes. Images of humanity depict a broad range of cultures.
These images show food, architecture, and humans in portraits as well as going about their day-to-day lives. Many pictures are annotated with one or more indications of scales of time, size, or mass. Some images contain indications of chemical composition. All measures used on the pictures are defined in the first few images using physical references that are likely to be consistent anywhere in the universe.
The musical selection is also varied, featuring works by composers such as J.S. Bach (interpreted by Glenn Gould), Mozart, Beethoven (played by the Budapest String Quartet), and Stravinsky. The disc also includes music by Guan Pinghu, Blind Willie Johnson, Chuck Berry, Kesarbai Kerkar, Valya Balkanska, and electronic composer Laurie Spiegel, as well as Azerbaijani folk music by oboe player Kamil Jalilov.
The inclusion of Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" was controversial, with some claiming that rock music was "adolescent", to which Sagan replied, "There are a lot of adolescents on the planet."
The selection of music for the record was completed by a team composed of Carl Sagan as project director, Linda Salzman Sagan, Frank Drake, Alan Lomax, Ann Druyan as creative director, artist Jon Lomberg, Timothy Ferris as producer, and Jimmy Iovine as sound engineer.
The Golden Record also carries an hour-long recording of the brainwaves of Ann Druyan
During the recording of the brainwaves, Druyan thought of many topics, including Earth's history, civilizations and the problems they face, and what it was like to fall in love.
After NASA had received criticism over the nudity on the Pioneer plaque (line drawings of a naked man and woman), the agency chose not to allow Sagan and his colleagues to include a photograph of a nude man and woman on the record. Instead, only a silhouette of the couple was included. However, the record does contain "Diagram of vertebrate evolution", by Jon Lomberg, with drawings of an anatomically correct naked male and naked female, showing external organs.
The pulsar map and hydrogen molecule diagram are shared in common with the Pioneer plaque.
The 115 images are encoded in analogue form and composed of 512 vertical lines.
The remainder of the record is audio, designed to be played at 16â…” revolutions per minute.
Jimmy Iovine, who was still early in his career as a music producer, served as sound engineer for the project. It has been said that Carl Sagan suggested including the Beatles song "Here Comes the Sun" on the record but the record company EMI, which held the copyrights, declined. However, this was refuted by Timothy Ferris, who worked on the selection with Sagan; the song was never even considered for inclusion
