Apr 15, 2024 · By Erik Olsen

JPL and the Voyager Golden Record, Humanity’s Mixtape for the Stars

In 1977, JPL sent two gold-plated records into space aboard the Voyager probes, loaded with music, whale songs, greetings in 55 languages and a kiss. Here’s what’s on them and how they were made.

Updated Oct 12, 2026

---

In 1977, NASA launched two spacecraft on a trip through the outer solar system, and bolted to the side of each one was a record. An actual phonograph record, made of gold-plated copper, loaded with music, greetings, whale songs and a kiss. It was meant for anyone, or anything, that might find it someday.

The Voyager spacecraft were built and run by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, just above Pasadena. JPL is known for sending hardware deep into space, but the Voyager Golden Record may be the strangest thing it ever launched. It was as much art project as science, a mixtape for the galaxy, built to last a billion years.

Photo: NASA/JPL-Cal Tech

The idea came from a small team led by the astronomer Carl Sagan. With him were the astronomer Frank Drake, the writer Ann Druyan, the artist Jon Lomberg and Linda Salzman Sagan. Their job was to sum up Earth on two sides of a record. They chose Bach and Beethoven, greetings in 55 languages, thunderstorms and whales, and 115 pictures of life on our planet.

Picking the songs was the fun part. Making something that could survive decades in space and still be playable by a civilization that has never heard of a record player was the hard part. That’s where JPL came in.

Inspection of the engraving of the Voyager Golden Record.
Photo: NASA/JPL-Cal Tech

JPL, which Caltech runs for NASA, was already building the spacecraft, so it also had to figure out how to attach the records and make them usable. Each one came with a cartridge and a needle. The cover was etched with diagrams explaining how to play it, plus a map showing where Earth is in relation to 14 pulsars, spinning stars that tick so regularly they work as cosmic landmarks.

JPL also worked on the physical records. According to the lab’s accounts, it coordinated with RCA Records on the master disc. The copies were plated in gold and sealed in aluminum jackets to protect them from the vacuum, radiation and brutal temperatures of space.

Photo: NASA/JPL-Cal Tech

Then the records went up, one on Voyager 1 and one on Voyager 2, and they’re still out there.

Both Voyagers have now left the solar system and entered interstellar space. They’re the most distant objects humans have ever made, and they’re still carrying their records.

JPL written on the Voyager Golden Record
Photo: NASA/JPL-Cal Tech

So what’s actually on the record?

First, the hardware. The Golden Records are phonograph records, like vinyl, but made of copper coated in gold so they’ll last. Each sits in an aluminum jacket with a cartridge and needle, and the symbols on the cover explain where the spacecraft came from and how to play the disc. It’s meant to spin at 16 2/3 revolutions per minute, much slower than the 33 1/3 or 45 rpm of a normal record.

The contents were carefully chosen to show as much of Earth as they could fit:

Sounds of Earth. Thunder, wind, birdsong and whale songs, plus human sounds like footsteps, a heartbeat and laughter.

The DNA structure magnified, light hit image is one of the pictures electronically placed on the phonograph records which are carried onboard the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft. Credit: Jon Lomberg

Music. Twenty-seven tracks from around the world, from Bach and Beethoven to a Navajo night chant and a Peruvian wedding song.

Greetings in 55 languages. Everything from “hello” in English to ancient Akkadian.

Pictures. 115 images encoded on the record, showing people of different races and sexes, everyday life, math and the solar system.

CALIFORNIA CURATED ART ON ETSY

Purchase stunning art prints of iconic California scenes.
**Check out our Etsy store. **

Messages from world leaders. Including President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

Human-made noise. Tools, cars, a kiss and a screaming chimpanzee.

The odds that anyone will ever find one of these records are tiny. Space is very big, and the Voyagers are very small. But the people who made them knew that. The record was less a message we expected to be answered than a way of saying, as clearly as we could, “We were here, and this is what we were like.”