THE VOYAGER INTERSTELLAR OUTREACH PROGRAM
In 1977, NASA launched two spacecraft known as Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 to explore the outer planets of the solar system. After a pretty cool and spectacular mission during which they flew past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune (picture below), the two spacecraft headed out of the solar system. Voyager 1 is (as of June 1, 2001), 12.033 billion kilometers from the Earth. Voyager-1 is farther from the Earth than any other object made by humans. Twelve billion kilometers is a long long way. Voyager-2. on the other hand is only 9.6 billion kilometers from us (as of 1 June 2001). Amazingly, both spacecraft are functioning fine and returning all sorts of cool data about the outer reaches of our little tiny miniscule solar system.
So anyway, when NASA launched Voyager into space in 1977, they had this unusually creative (well, for NASA) idea. Since the Voyagers are heading out into interstellar space and will just pass by random galaxies and things like that, NASA decided to put something from the Earth on each spacecraft. Basically, each probe has a 12 inch voyager gold plated record (a phonograph record, it was the '70s) containing sounds and images to portray what it's like to live on the planet Earth. All this stuff was picked by an expert team of billions and billiions of bearded guys led by Carl Sagan. In any case, the record consists of sounds of the Earth (wind, surf, rain, birds, whales, chinmpanzees, etc.). It also carries greetings from the Earth in 55 languages -- everything from Akkadian, spoken in Sumeria in 2000 B.C. to Wu which all of you should know is a modern Chinese dialect. The record also has 115 still pictures, 90 minutes of music from different cultures and time periods, a message from Jimmy Carter (he was President before he built houses) and UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim (yes, the guy who was nailed as a former Nazi soon after). So this is the cool part. The record player comes with instructions on how to use it case aliens crash into it. The instructions, in "symbolic language" also explain where the Voyagers are from. They have a little map, with arrows and stuff.
So what's the music like, you ask. Well go here to check it out. Everything that is on this record is listed on this website. And you can hear the actual greetings (including Bengali, Telugu, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Rajasthani), the sounds of the Earth (various animals), etc. Although the music isn't stored here, you can see a list of all the music on Voyager. The music includes Bach, percussion from Senegal, pygmy girl initiation songs from Zaire, and um, Chuck Berry. No Beatles, and certainly no Replacements. Well, actually the Replacements didn't exist at the time. In any case, check it out.
If you're holding out that aliens will crash into it anytime soon, fear not. The Voyagers are not expected to pass by anything resembling a planetary system the next forthy thousand years. However, after that, keep your fingers crossed.