August and September 2011 mark 34 years in
the journeys of
Voyager 1 and 2. The two scientific probes, progeny of the
Mariner program, were sent out to survey this solar system and beyond.
Voyager 2 completed the
Grand Tour in 2009 (excluding Pluto), and
Voyager 1 is getting closer to interstellar space (
previously). Both scientific probes were sent out in with
a time capsule from 1977,
golden records secured in plain view on the outside of the Voyager Spacecraft. These
greetings from earth (alt links: Coral Cache, Archive.org) were recorded in the form of 116 images,
a collection of sounds of this planet,
greetings in
55 languages (
YT),
27 songs from around the world, and
brain waves of Ann Druyan, then recently
engaged to Carl Sagan. For all that work, the
"Mix Tape of the Gods" almost didn't get sent into space because of some last-minute writing in the run-outs.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Aug 5, 2011 -
26 comments
One of the songs on the Golden Record included on the two Voyager spacecraft was
Flowing Water performed by Guan Pinghu on the guqin. The guqin, Confucius' favorite instrument, has been played in China for at least 3000 years. There's a lot of
guqin videos out there but the two players I listen to the most are
jts1702a and
Charlie Huang (who is the main contributer to Wikipedia's excellent
guqin article).
posted by Kattullus
on Feb 10, 2008 -
16 comments
