NASA’s Voyager 1 to carry music from Earth one light-day into space, extending distance record

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, carrying a Golden Record featuring music and sounds from Earth, is set to reach a distance of one light-day from our planet on 18 November. The milestone will place the record more than 16 billion miles (25.9 billion kilometres) from Earth, farther than any human-made object has ever travelled.

Launched on 5 September 1977, Voyager 1 has spent nearly five decades travelling through space and became the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space in 2012. Its Golden Record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disc, was designed as a time capsule documenting the sounds, images and musical traditions of Earth.

In an Instagram post shared on Tuesday, 10 November, NASA reflected on the spacecraft’s journey and the cultural material accompanying it.

“On September 5, 1977, our Voyager 1 spacecraft lifted off with the Golden Record – which contains sounds, pictures, and music from Earth,” the agency wrote.

An identical record was also placed aboard Voyager 2, launched earlier that year. The recordings were selected by a committee led by astronomer and planetary scientist Carl Sagan, bringing together music from different cultures and periods alongside everyday sounds, including wind, rain, animal calls and human laughter.

The musical selection spans classical compositions by Bach, Beethoven and Mozart, alongside Chuck Berry’s ‘Johnny B. Goode’, Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven’s ‘Melancholy Blues’ and Blind Willie Johnson’s ‘Dark Was the Night’.

Recordings from other musical traditions include Aboriginal songs from Australia, percussion from Senegal, panpipes and drums from Peru, traditional Georgian singing, Japanese shakuhachi music and Azerbaijani bagpipes.

Beyond music, the records contain spoken greetings in 55 languages and 115 images documenting human life, science and the natural world. Their protective covers include symbolic instructions intended to help any future discoverers identify their origin and play the recordings.

To mark the upcoming milestone, NASA has announced a worldwide initiative titled ‘Shine Bright for Voyager’s Light-Day’, inviting the public to send symbolic light signals into the sky after sunset on 17 November.

Voyager 1 is expected to reach the one-light-day distance on 18 November, when a signal travelling at the speed of light will take 24 hours to reach the spacecraft from Earth.

The music and sounds included on the Golden Records are available to explore through NASA’s official archive, while further details of the commemorative event can be found here.