Discovering extraterrestrial life that we could talk with would be awesome, hopefully. There’s always the chance that the aliens we encounter are not very friendly, but there’s also a large chance that they are single-celled microbes, according to the lecture at Fuertes Observatory this past Friday. An interesting prospect, though, is if we are discovered by other life first. This is actually not that much less likely, since in 1977, when NASA launched the voyager, two golden records were sent with it. These records contain sounds and images that would give whoever found them a sample of what it’s like to be on Earth. There is a track listing on Wikipedia, and the sounds sent out vary from traditional folk music of a certain region, to greetings in multiple different languages. It’s a pretty nifty little mix tape.

What I find almost more interesting are the additional instructions on how to play the record. These have to clarify that we use a binary system when referring to numbers and we also have to define time on the basis of the fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom, because hydrogen atoms are universal. All of this is with the hopes that something does actually find the record in the vast emptiness of space. Carl Sagan once made reference to the fact that sending out something so small into an area so ginormous and unknown speaks to the hope that we have as a human race. I thought that was a pretty cool way to look at it.