Click the photo at the top of the linked page to view
The Voyagers, a rumination on the universe, love, a golden record and two small space probes.
posted by Brandon Blatcher
on Dec 26, 2011 -
4 comments
The
Cynic's Corner, abandoned in 2003, features a handful of reviews for various Star Trek TV franchises, as well as Andromeda (ostensibly a Roddenberry project) and Babylon 5. Each review covers a variety of topics, including the Temporal Anomaly Of The Week, Spatial Anomaly Of The Week, Unexplained Mystery Of The Week, and the War Crime Of The Week. An entertaining read, and serious time sink, for anyone currently skipping past Lwaxana Troi episodes on Netflix Instant.
posted by Brocktoon
on Oct 17, 2011 -
15 comments
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
"I can sense stars, and their whispers amid the roaring of our own Sun." So goes one poetic status of the
Voyager 2 twitterfeed, which appeals to my sense of wonder like nothing else on the internet. Interstellar space probes and microblogging go hand in hand in the 21st Century.
posted by Kattullus
on Dec 21, 2010 -
23 comments
In 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 1 & 2 spacecraft, fastening to each a phonograph album containing sounds and music of Earth. If the best calculations are to be believed, one of these records was intercepted and “remixed” sometime in 2005 by extraterrestrial intelligences on the edge of our solar system. Ladies and Gentlemen:
the Voyager Interstellar Record, Remixed by Extraterrestrials.
posted by muckster
on Nov 13, 2010 -
14 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
Voyager's Golden Record This is life on earth 1977 as it will appear when Voyager 1 meets life (ETA 40.000 years from now)... and finds a turntable.
Pioneers 10 and 11, which preceded Voyager, both carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find them in the distant future. With this example before them, NASA placed a more ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2-a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a
phonograph record-a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing
sounds and images selected to portray the
diversity of
life and
culture on
Earth.
Hello, ET!
posted by Bravocharlie
on Dec 13, 2006 -
35 comments
Ry Cooder once said
Dark Was The Night--Cold Was The Ground was
the most soulful, transcendent piece of American music recorded in the 20th Century.
Unearthly and
music of the spheres were common descriptions long before both became fact when it was included on a golden record was affixed to the star bound
Voyager space probe. My first encounter with
Dark Was The Night was while watching, and then listening to the soundtrack album of, Piero Paulo Pasolini’s
The Gospel According To St. Matthew--or as it is known in Sicily kickin' Bootsville,
Il Vangelo de Matteo--which is, in my humble opinion, the Greatest. Jesus. Movie. Evar. Ironically, coincidentally and serendipitously, it was an apt choice by Pasolini, as the
hymn from which
Blind Willie Johnson's wordless moan derives is a song about Christ’s passion—his suffering and crucifixion. (Continued with much more within)
posted by y2karl
on Sep 15, 2005 -
67 comments
Saturn's enigmatic moon
Titan holds on to its mysteries.
Radar images reveal quite a bit of variation but no clear interpretation. The hazy atmosphere prevents the sudden shock of discovery that characterized the Voyager and Galileo flybys of the moons of Jupiter, revealing little more than
fuzzy Rorschach blobs. With less than 1% of the surface mapped, researchers suspect that Titan has a
young surface shaped by processes that have yet to be revealed.
posted by KirkJobSluder
on Nov 5, 2004 -
5 comments
Far, far away. Today, Voyager 1 will reach 90
AU from the sun, around which distance it is expected to cross the "termination shock," finally crossing into the fuzzy boundary between the
heliosphere and true
interstellar space. (Yes, it's taken
that long to get there.) Some even think that
the termination shock has already been reached, but then re-expanded past the spacecraft. Tears need not be shed yet for these distant explorers:
both Voyagers have juice till about 2020, and the mission remains
very much alive. (No word, however, on a possible
return to the Creator.)
posted by brownpau
on Nov 5, 2003 -
25 comments
Star Trek: Voyager fanfiction. For years, people have asked themselves, what would happen if certain crewmembers hooked up? Endless combinations have been thought out and pondered, but perhaps the most popular of all, Janeway and Seven of Nine, has been given the full treatment here. Possibly not safe for work (especially the "R" rated stories), because you could be carried out as you laugh yourself to death. A look into the bizarre and often highly amusing world of fanfiction.
posted by insomnyuk
on Oct 19, 2003 -
66 comments
