Pic of the Day (21st Nov)

Event Horizon

Event Horizon

Event Horizon

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record_voyager.jpg


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Launched 25 years ago , NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are now over 10 billion kilometers from the Sun. Still operational, the Voyagers are being tracked and commanded through the Deep Space Network. Having traveled beyond the outer planets, these remarkable spacecraft are only the third and fourth human built artifacts to escape our solar system, following in the footsteps of Pioneer 10 & 11. A 12-inch gold plated copper disk containing recorded sounds and images representing human cultures and life on Earth, is affixed to each Voyager -a message in a bottle, cast into the cosmic sea. The recorded material was selected by a committee chaired by the late Carl Sagan.Simple diagrams on the cover (visible above) represent symbolically the spacecraft's origin and give instructions for playing the disk. The exotic construction of the disks should provide them with a long lifetime as they coast through interstellar space. The two spacecraft will not make a close approach to another planetary system for at least 40,000 years.


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I'm always a bit dubious of these 'messages' we send out with probes and stuff. If something like that turned up on earth from some distant civilisation would we ever work out what all those squiggles are supposed to mean?
 
It's easy to take things for granted - once you've been told what everything means it's all pretty clear but without that knowledge it all looks pretty meaningless.

You only have to look at our lack of understanding and disagreement about the meaning of something like the pyramids, and they should be pretty simple to understand by comparison to this - I mean how exactly is another species supposed to make the connection between that spider diagram and pulsars?
 
Unfortunately...

We may have signed our own fate - I'd have just put some primitive cave-style paintings on it - buffalo and clubs and bows and arrows and such like so the aliens think we're really backward.

Then, when they come here looking to conquer us, thinking it's going to be a pushover, we can be waiting to jump them and take their ships, declare war on them and conquer them, then impregnate their women and drive their cars about, drinking their booze.

But now they know we're actually a bit crafty.

I'm going to hide.
 
The drawing in the lower left-hand corner of the cover is the pulsar map previously sent as part of the plaques on Pioneers 10 and 11. It shows the location of the solar system with respect to 14 pulsars, whose precise periods are given. The drawing containing two circles in the lower right-hand corner is a drawing of the hydrogen atom in its two lowest states, with a connecting line and digit 1 to indicate that the time interval associated with the transition from one state to the other is to be used as the fundamental time scale, both for
the time given on the cover and in the decoded pictures.

Simple :D



conquer them, then impregnate their women and drive their cars about, drinking their booze.
Click to expand...


Now that sound like a plan!
 
Originally posted by kaiowas
I'm always a bit dubious of these 'messages' we send out with probes and stuff. If something like that turned up on earth from some distant civilisation would we ever work out what all those squiggles are supposed to mean?
Click to expand...
They can always use it as a frisbee if they don't know what it says ;)
 
The plaque is in solid 24 carat gold. All the symbols printed on it would make sense to an advanced race. There's also a piccy of what we look like.

Anyone not giving this post 5 stars gets castrated.
 
Hang on a minute...

I'm sure that disc is the one I found in my garden years ago. It was a bit scorched but it polished up nice. I use it as a coaster. On the other side it bears a strange inscription:


120 hours FREE
with AOL

Try it NOW!
 
Originally posted by Gandolf
With bated breath:D
Click to expand...
Took me a little bit longer than I had expected, but wait no more...


Click on the image for larger version (there's an OcUK logo in the image, BTW)

Having read the explanation of the symbols, this had to be done. I'll enter it in the OcUK Wallpaper Competition if that's still happening, but I don't mind if someone else takes it and uses it as a starting point for their creation.
 
Awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome. It blows my mind thinking about how far these spacecraft have gone and how much they have achieved. Here's a picture of the disc on the craft:

voyager_disc.jpg
 
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