Voyager's Gold Record

The Golden Record consists of 115 analog-encoded photographs, greetings in 55 languages, a 12-minute montage of sounds on Earth and 90 minutes of music. (J Marshall - Tribaleye Images / Alamy)

- Smithsonian Magazine

Apparently NASA has uploaded to the web the entire contents of the infamous gold record sent into deep space inside of the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Even though the media reported the spacecraft to have left our solar system in 2013, I heard or read somewhere it could take as long as 20,000 years if you include the comet belt surrounding it. The spacecraft travels at a rate of one million miles a day.

So the craft is now on a diplomatic mission as a representative of Planet Earth. Someday it may be intercepted by some intelligent extraterrestrial specie with billions more years of evolution on us, and one of the songs they include is Johnny B. Goode? Really? I'm a more than a little embarrassed. How about some sounds of the 70s, like Donna Summer. That would have been super groovy. Seriously, John Lennon's Imagine absolutely should have been on the play list. I call a do over.

You can learn more about the gold record contents through Smithsonian Magazine.