Photos NASA picked to explain our world to aliens

vox.com

51 points·_dps··8 comments

I'm struck by the great historical fortune of the people in these images. Barring an interstellar collision, they will outlast any earthly monument we could create to honor a person. Long after the Earth has been consumed by the sun, Jane Goodall's face will still be out there, cruising between the stars, hanging out with her apes.

I'm also amused at the idea that NASA was concerned about photographs depicting nude humans. Even on a document intended to be launched into the depths of space, the bureaucrats were concerned about perceived indecency.

"Notably missing are the Beatles, who reportedly wanted to contribute "Here Comes the Sun" but couldn't secure permission from their record company."

I found this line hilarious, originally taking it to imply that they were forbidden to cast their song into the void on the basis of copyright.

Here's a link to all the images, without the bad grainy effect added.

http://webodysseum.com/art/116-images-of-the-voyager-golden-...

Has anyone tried giving a replica of the record, and the instructions image, to a team to see if they could reverse engineer the contents?

How would that work? I would think it would be difficult to find a team of (human) engineers who don't have a general idea of how a record works, etc, much less one that wouldn't pretty immediately understand which parts are photographs of earth creatures and such.

You are not helped by recognizing the content of the images.

The only advantage would be prior knowledge of this record, and human biology (rgb color).

I don't think most humans would be able to figure all that out.

Fortunately the test is weather a civilization can figure it all out.

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