NASA Launched Sounds of Earth for Aliens to Find—Carl Sagan’s Copy Is Headed to Auction

Now, a master recording of the record—in the form of two tapes—is set to be auctioned off Thursday by Sotheby’s with an estimated price of between US$400,000 and US$600,000.

The copy is owned by Ann Druyan, the wife of the late scientist and astronomer
Carl Sagan.
Both Druyan and Sagan worked on the record—a sort of interstellar time capsule set to last for billions of years. Then a professor of astronomy at Cornell University, Sagan and his colleague Frank Drake had been asked to help create the record that might someday serve as an introduction to Earth to a being in a galaxy far, far away. 

“Bursting with the myriad sounds of life, Carl and I and our colleagues designed the Golden Record to be a testament to the beauty of being alive on Earth,” Druyan, creative director of NASA’s Voyager Interstellar Message Project, said in a statement. 

The sound essay was put together over six months as an aural history of our planet, including a rainforest noisy with life, the heart sounds of a woman who has just fallen in love, and music from around the world, such as pieces by classical greats Bach and Mozart, drum beats from Senegal, a Peruvian wedding song, a Georgian men’s chorus, a Navajo night chant, and the song of a Bulgarian shepherdess. 

There was also some rock ’n’ roll to accompany the Voyagers on their journey through the galactic rocks—Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode. In addition, the package included a stylus and instructions on how to play the album. 

“We hoped it would capture the richness and diversity of our world,” Druyan continued. “Almost half a century since their creation, these tapes … present a unique opportunity for a collector to obtain the only original version of the first object to cross the heliopause, that place where the solar wind gives way to the gales of interstellar cosmic rays—it may be the only thing that will live on after everything we know is gone.”

The record also has a hand-carved inscription: “To the makers of music—all worlds, all times.”

“The Voyager missions are among the greatest acts of exploration in history, and the undertaking of the Golden Record reflects the incredible optimism, fascination, and humility when faced with the great unknown of the universe,” Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby’s global head of science and popular culture, said in a statement. “Led by Ann Druyan and Carl Sagan, the production of the Record was a monumental task, and it is a great honor to offer their personal copy of this most profound and unique artifact.”