\n<\/p>\n
Do you have a message you want to shout out to the universe? Or whisper into the ear-equivalent of an alien?<\/p>\n
In interstellar space, more than 20bn km from Earth, the Voyager spacecraft are whizzing along at more than 50,000 km\/h.<\/p>\n
Launched in 1977, they each carry a Golden Record \u2013 a gold-plated copper phonograph disk that contains information to introduce the human race to extraterrestrial beings.<\/p>\n
<\/span>\u2018I want you to know that we\u2019re curious about you and hope you are happy where you are,\u2019 is one message from a young space ambassador.<\/span> Photograph: Andy Roberts<\/p>\n The cover details instructions on how to play the record, a pulsar star map to show how to find our solar system (which could go terribly wrong) and a guide to when the craft was launched. The record itself has spoken greetings in 55 languages, and music from different cultures and eras \u2013 including two songs from Yolngu people, the traditional owners of Arnhem Land.<\/p>\n double quotation markHumans are mostly harmless, however people eat pineapple on pizza. Don\u2019t judgeA message to the universe<\/p>\n Almost 50 years later, Australians have the chance to record a new message to send into deep space, in answer to the question: \u201cWhat would you like the universe to remember about our story on Earth?\u201d<\/p>\n More than 1,700 people have already contributed through the Humanity United with MIT Art and Nanotechnology in Space (HUMANS) Deep Space Message project via its collaboration with Sydney\u2019s Powerhouse Museum.<\/p>\n People recorded messages at last year\u2019s International Astronautical Congress, and have until 27 February to add their own voice note to far-flung civilisations through the Powerhouse\u2019s portal.<\/p>\n \u201cHello friends in space, I\u2019m nine years old and I live on Earth. I love looking at the stars at night and imagining who might be out there,\u201d one says. \u201cI want you to know that we\u2019re curious about you and hope you are happy where you are.<\/p>\n \u201cEarth is OK. Full of oceans, trees, animals and people.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018We are a speck in the universe but that is OK,\u2019 said another recorded message.<\/span> Photograph: Andy Roberts<\/p>\n Another says \u201chumans are really stupid and feeble and tiny, but that is what makes us so great\u201d. \u201cThe fact that we can find meaning and life in small things, that our lives can amount to nothing but mean everything all at once. We are a speck in the universe but that is OK.\u201d<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/p>\n And a third is set to import one of Earth\u2019s biggest controversies into an alien world.<\/p>\n \u201cHumans are mostly harmless, however people eat pineapple on pizza,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t judge.\u201d<\/p>\n The project has previously launched messages to the International Space Station and to the moon, while the current project will be launched on a space mission to mark the Voyagers\u2019 50th anniversary next year, with the audio then broadcast into deep space.<\/p>\n <\/span>The messages are \u2018really, deeply human,\u2019 says Dr Maya Nasr, the project lead.<\/span> Photograph: Andy Roberts<\/p>\n The contents of the original Golden Record were picked by a committee chaired by the late, great scientist and science communicator Carl Sagan, while the HUMANS project is far more democratic.<\/p>\n \u201cIt makes you focus on what it is about me, my world, and my place in the world that you want to tell about humans and human life,\u201d the chief executive officer of the Powerhouse Museum, Lisa Havilah, says.<\/p>\n \u201cEven that word \u2018human\u2019 connects us deeply \u2026 we are one \u2013 it shows the sameness of us all even in our extreme diversity.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Maya Nasr, a Harvard University science engineer and the project lead and co-founder, collaborated with Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers who developed the silicone nano wafer that will carry the audio.<\/p>\n She says the messages are \u201creally, deeply human\u201d, with themes including love of family and friends, hope and the future, identity, culture, language and belonging, and everyday life on Earth. Some are playful, some talk about peace and unity, some describe the planet, its oceans and animals, and some are more existential, about time and mortality.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Golden Record was always an outward gesture of who we were in the 1970s to extraterrestrials, if they existed,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd HUMANS was really inspired by that legacy, but what we really want is to be an inward reflection of who we are, and to connect people through that.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, when the world feels very fragmented, this project reminds us of the importance of finding some element of a shared story as humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Two of the original Voyager Golden Records, circa 1977.<\/span> Photograph: Nasa\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Nasr says the message will travel out into deep space, and degrade to become part of the pattern of the universe, but that the project is more about thinking about the question of the Earth\u2019s story.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the act of thinking about this \u2026 makes us more aware of how fragile and rare life on Earth is, even if we are alone \u2026 The silence of the universe kind of asks us more about who we are, when no one answers back.\u201d<\/p>\n But she does think it\u2019s likely there is life out there, considering the vastness of space.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be really extraordinary if life only existed once,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s really hard to believe that we\u2019re the only experiment that life ever tried.\u201d<\/p>\n Nasr, who is Lebanese, recorded her message for the universe in Arabic. It translates as: \u201cI would like the universe to remember that we carried contradictions within us while searching for meaning. That we were human beings who dreamed, made mistakes, loved, and created memories.<\/p>\n \u201cThat our story was not only about our achievements, but about the small moments between us, our love, our uncertainty, our constant attempts, because that is what made life worth living.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do you have a message you want to shout out to the universe? Or whisper into the ear-equivalent of an alien? In interstellar space, more than 20bn km from Earth, the Voyager spacecraft are whizzing along at more than 50,000 km\/h. Launched in 1977, they each carry a Golden Record \u2013 a gold-plated copper phonograph<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[7164,3045,4089,2001,742,3905,1014,1101,1179,5005],"class_list":{"0":"post-44945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-50th","9":"tag-anniversary","10":"tag-australians","11":"tag-chance","12":"tag-message","13":"tag-projects","14":"tag-send","15":"tag-space","16":"tag-universe","17":"tag-voyager"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}