Is actually a gold plated record, made of copper. It contains greetings in 55 languages (I can't help but think the recipient will try to speak the 'earth' language and only be able to say Hello, Hello, Hello etc...) and it's currently 17,409,695,485 Km's from Earth. It's moving away from us at a mind-bending 18kms per second. (London-New York in 5 mins anyone ?).
It's Voyager 1, and it's the farthest object from the rest of us that our race as ever created. It's pushing well beyond the edge of the known solar system, having been in space since September 1977. It reflects our values, our message and our technology from that time.
If it were to be sent today, would we have included a DVD instead ? (or perhaps an iPod). How would our core messages have changed in 35 years..? Think now 50, 75 or even 250 years out...our message in a bottle will be a quaint antique reflecting how things were in an emerging technical society that less than 10 years earlier had made it's first footprints upon another stellar body. How different will we be, assuming we're still here..
Voyager 1 represents both the best of us in our reach towards expanding our own horizons, and the most myopic of us at the same time. It reflects a moment in time, captured immortal as if it was the most important. I pray whoever finds Voyager 1 (and happens to own a record player of the same vintage) takes pity on us and sees our impertinence as a virtue of youth.
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