Voyager 1 and 2 launch carrying the Golden Record
A rare planetary alignment lets two probes tour the outer planets, each carrying a message from Earth
Quick facts
- Agency
- NASA / JPL
- Voyager 1 launch
- 5 September 1977
- Voyager 2 launch
- 20 August 1977
- Golden Record curator
- Carl Sagan (committee chair)
What happened
Voyager 2 launched on 20 August 1977, followed by Voyager 1 on 5 September 1977, taking advantage of a rare alignment of the outer planets, occurring roughly every 175 years, that allowed a single spacecraft to visit Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune using gravity assists between each flyby. Each spacecraft carries an identical Golden Record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disc holding sounds and images meant to portray life on Earth. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manager John Casani appointed astronomer Carl Sagan to lead the committee that assembled its contents: 115 photographs, greetings spoken in 55 languages, natural sounds like thunder and whale song, and 90 minutes of music spanning Bach, Chuck Berry, and traditional recordings from cultures around the world.
Why it matters
Both Voyager spacecraft went on to complete the full grand tour of the outer planets and, decades later, became the first human-made objects to leave the heliosphere and enter interstellar space, carrying the Golden Record with them on a journey with no planned end, a genuinely irreversible artifact of the mission's design.
How we know
NASA Science's own overview of the Golden Record documents its physical composition and contents; a separate NASA Science retrospective on the record's thirtieth anniversary names Sagan's committee role directly, drawn from the agency's internal account of how the project was organized.
Sources
- NASA Science. Golden Record Overview · Primary source (author-declared)science.nasa.gov · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- NASA Science. Voyager at 30: Looking Beyond and Within - The Golden Record · Primary source (author-declared)science.nasa.gov · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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