voyager sound recordings

What Is on Voyager’s Golden Record?

From a whale song to a kiss, the time capsule sent into space in 1977 had some interesting contents

Megan Gambino

Senior Editor

“I thought it was a brilliant idea from the beginning,” says Timothy Ferris. Produce a phonograph record containing the sounds and images of humankind and fling it out into the solar system.

By the 1970s, astronomers Carl Sagan and Frank Drake already had some experience with sending messages out into space. They had created two gold-anodized aluminum plaques that were affixed to the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecraft. Linda Salzman Sagan, an artist and Carl’s wife, etched an illustration onto them of a nude man and woman with an indication of the time and location of our civilization.

The “Golden Record” would be an upgrade to Pioneer’s plaques. Mounted on Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, twin probes launched in 1977, the two copies of the record would serve as time capsules and transmit much more information about life on Earth should extraterrestrials find it.

NASA approved the idea. So then it became a question of what should be on the record. What are humanity’s greatest hits? Curating the record’s contents was a gargantuan task, and one that fell to a team including the Sagans, Drake, author Ann Druyan, artist Jon Lomberg and Ferris, an esteemed science writer who was a friend of Sagan’s and a contributing editor to Rolling Stone .

The exercise, says Ferris, involved a considerable number of presuppositions about what aliens want to know about us and how they might interpret our selections. “I found myself increasingly playing the role of extraterrestrial,” recounts Lomberg in Murmurs of Earth , a 1978 book on the making of the record. When considering photographs to include, the panel was careful to try to eliminate those that could be misconstrued. Though war is a reality of human existence, images of it might send an aggressive message when the record was intended as a friendly gesture. The team veered from politics and religion in its efforts to be as inclusive as possible given a limited amount of space.

Over the course of ten months, a solid outline emerged. The Golden Record consists of 115 analog-encoded photographs, greetings in 55 languages, a 12-minute montage of sounds on Earth and 90 minutes of music. As producer of the record, Ferris was involved in each of its sections in some way. But his largest role was in selecting the musical tracks. “There are a thousand worthy pieces of music in the world for every one that is on the record,” says Ferris. I imagine the same could be said for the photographs and snippets of sounds.

The following is a selection of items on the record:

Silhouette of a Male and a Pregnant Female

The team felt it was important to convey information about human anatomy and culled diagrams from the 1978 edition of The World Book Encyclopedia. To explain reproduction, NASA approved a drawing of the human sex organs and images chronicling conception to birth. Photographer Wayne F. Miller’s famous photograph of his son’s birth, featured in Edward Steichen’s 1955 “Family of Man” exhibition, was used to depict childbirth. But as Lomberg notes in Murmurs of Earth , NASA vetoed a nude photograph of “a man and a pregnant woman quite unerotically holding hands.” The Golden Record experts and NASA struck a compromise that was less compromising— silhouettes of the two figures and the fetus positioned within the woman’s womb.

DNA Structure

At the risk of providing extraterrestrials, whose genetic material might well also be stored in DNA, with information they already knew, the experts mapped out DNA’s complex structure in a series of illustrations.

Demonstration of Eating, Licking and Drinking

When producers had trouble locating a specific image in picture libraries maintained by the National Geographic Society, the United Nations, NASA and Sports Illustrated , they composed their own. To show a mouth’s functions, for instance, they staged an odd but informative photograph of a woman licking an ice-cream cone, a man taking a bite out of a sandwich and a man drinking water cascading from a jug.

Olympic Sprinters

Images were selected for the record based not on aesthetics but on the amount of information they conveyed and the clarity with which they did so. It might seem strange, given the constraints on space, that a photograph of Olympic sprinters racing on a track made the cut. But the photograph shows various races of humans, the musculature of the human leg and a form of both competition and entertainment.

Photographs of huts, houses and cityscapes give an overview of the types of buildings seen on Earth. The Taj Mahal was chosen as an example of the more impressive architecture. The majestic mausoleum prevailed over cathedrals, Mayan pyramids and other structures in part because Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan built it in honor of his late wife, Mumtaz Mahal, and not a god.

Golden Gate Bridge

Three-quarters of the record was devoted to music, so visual art was less of a priority. A couple of photographs by the legendary landscape photographer Ansel Adams were selected, however, for the details captured within their frames. One, of the Golden Gate Bridge from nearby Baker Beach, was thought to clearly show how a suspension bridge connected two pieces of land separated by water. The hum of an automobile was included in the record’s sound montage, but the producers were not able to overlay the sounds and images.

A Page from a Book

An excerpt from a book would give extraterrestrials a glimpse of our written language, but deciding on a book and then a single page within that book was a massive task. For inspiration, Lomberg perused rare books, including a first-folio Shakespeare, an elaborate edition of Chaucer from the Renaissance and a centuries-old copy of Euclid’s  Elements  (on geometry), at the Cornell University Library. Ultimately, he took MIT astrophysicist Philip Morrison’s suggestion: a  page  from Sir Isaac Newton’s  System of the World , where the means of launching an object into orbit is described for the very first time.

Greeting from Nick Sagan

To keep with the spirit of the project, says Ferris, the wordings of the 55 greetings were left up to the speakers of the languages. In  Burmese , the message was a simple, “Are you well?” In  Indonesian , it was, “Good night ladies and gentlemen. Goodbye and see you next time.” A woman speaking the Chinese dialect of  Amoy  uttered a welcoming, “Friends of space, how are you all? Have you eaten yet? Come visit us if you have time.” It is interesting to note that the final greeting, in  English , came from then-6-year-old Nick Sagan, son of Carl and Linda Salzman Sagan. He said, “Hello from the children of planet Earth.”

Whale Greeting

Biologist Roger Payne provided a whale song (“the most beautiful whale greeting,” he said, and “the one that should last forever”) captured with hydrophones off the coast of Bermuda in 1970. Thinking that perhaps the whale song might make more sense to aliens than to humans, Ferris wanted to include more than a slice and so mixed some of the song behind the greetings in different languages. “That strikes some people as hilarious, but from a bandwidth standpoint, it worked quite well,” says Ferris. “It doesn’t interfere with the greetings, and if you are interested in the whale song, you can extract it.”

Reportedly, the trickiest sound to record was a  kiss . Some were too quiet, others too loud, and at least one was too disingenuous for the team’s liking. Music producer Jimmy Iovine kissed his arm. In the end, the kiss that landed on the record was actually one that Ferris planted on Ann Druyan’s cheek.

Druyan had the idea to record a person’s brain waves, so that should extraterrestrials millions of years into the future have the technology, they could decode the individual’s thoughts. She was the guinea pig. In an hour-long session hooked to an EEG at New York University Medical Center, Druyan meditated on a series of prepared thoughts. In  Murmurs of Earth , she admits that “a couple of irrepressible facts of my own life” slipped in. She and Carl Sagan had gotten engaged just days before, so a love story may very well be documented in her neurological signs. Compressed into a minute-long segment, the  brain waves  sound, writes Druyan, like a “string of exploding firecrackers.”

Georgian Chorus—“Tchakrulo”

The team discovered a beautiful recording of “Tchakrulo” by Radio Moscow and wanted to include it, particularly since Georgians are often credited with introducing polyphony, or music with two or more independent melodies, to the Western world. But before the team members signed off on the tune, they had the lyrics translated. “It was an old song, and for all we knew could have celebrated bear-baiting,” wrote Ferris in  Murmurs of Earth . Sandro Baratheli, a Georgian speaker from Queens, came to the rescue. The word “tchakrulo” can mean either “bound up” or “hard” and “tough,” and the song’s narrative is about a peasant protest against a landowner.

Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”

According to Ferris, Carl Sagan had to warm up to the idea of including Chuck Berry’s 1958 hit “Johnny B. Goode” on the record, but once he did, he defended it against others’ objections. Folklorist Alan Lomax was against it, arguing that rock music was adolescent. “And Carl’s brilliant response was, ‘There are a lot of adolescents on the planet,’” recalls Ferris.

On April 22, 1978,  Saturday Night Live  spoofed the Golden Record in a  skit  called “Next Week in Review.” Host Steve Martin played a psychic named Cocuwa, who predicted that  Time  magazine would reveal, on the following week’s cover, a four-word message from aliens. He held up a mock cover, which read, “Send More Chuck Berry.”

More than four decades later, Ferris has no regrets about what the team did or did not include on the record. “It means a lot to have had your hand in something that is going to last a billion years,” he says. “I recommend it to everybody. It is a healthy way of looking at the world.”

According to the writer, NASA approached him about producing another record but he declined. “I think we did a good job once, and it is better to let someone else take a shot,” he says.

So, what would you put on a record if one were being sent into space today?

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Megan Gambino | | READ MORE

Megan Gambino is a senior web editor for Smithsonian magazine.

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The Voyager Golden Record Finally Finds An Earthly Audience

Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi

The Voyager Golden Record remained mostly unavailable and unheard, until a Kickstarter campaign finally brought the sounds to human ears. Ozma Records/LADdesign hide caption

The Voyager Golden Record remained mostly unavailable and unheard, until a Kickstarter campaign finally brought the sounds to human ears.

The Golden Record is basically a 90-minute interstellar mixtape — a message of goodwill from the people of Earth to any extraterrestrial passersby who might stumble upon one of the two Voyager spaceships at some point over the next couple billion years.

But since it was made 40 years ago, the sounds etched into those golden grooves have gone mostly unheard, by alien audiences or those closer to home.

"The Voyager records are the farthest flung objects that humans have ever created," says Timothy Ferris, a veteran science and music journalist and the producer of the Golden Record. "And they're likely to be the longest lasting, at least in the 20th century."

In the late 1970s, Ferris was recruited by his friend, astronomer Carl Sagan, to join a team of scientists, artists and engineers to help create two engraved golden records to accompany NASA's Voyager mission — which would eventually send a pair of human spacecraft beyond the outer rings of the solar system for the first time in history.

Carl Sagan And Ann Druyan's Ultimate Mix Tape

Ferris was tasked with the technical aspects of getting the various media onto the physical LP, and with helping to select the music. In addition to greetings in dozens of languages and messages from leading statesmen, the records also contained a sonic history of planet Earth and photographs encoded into the record's grooves. But mostly, it was music.

"We were gathering a representation of the music of the entire earth," Ferris says. "That's an incredible wealth of great stuff."

Ferris and his colleagues worked together to sift through Earth's enormous discography to decide which pieces of sound would best represent our planet. They really only had two criteria: "One was: Let's cast a wide net. Let's try to get music from all over the planet," he says. "And secondly: Let's make a good record."

That meant late nights of listening sessions while "almost physically drowning in records," Ferris says.

The final selection, which was engraved in copper and plated in gold, included opera, rock 'n' roll, blues, classical music and field recordings selected by ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax .

When Voyager 1 and its identical sister craft Voyager 2 launched in 1977, each carried a gold record titled T he Sounds Of Earth that contained a selection of recordings of life and culture on Earth. The cover contains instructions for any extraterrestrial being wishing to play the record. NASA/Getty Images hide caption

When Voyager 1 and its identical sister craft Voyager 2 launched in 1977, each carried a gold record titled T he Sounds Of Earth that contained a selection of recordings of life and culture on Earth. The cover contains instructions for any extraterrestrial being wishing to play the record.

Ferris says that from the very start, many people on the production team expected and hoped for the record to be commercially released soon after the launch of Voyager.

"Carl Sagan tried to interest labels in releasing Voyager," Ferris says. "It never worked."

Ferris says that's likely because the music rights were owned by several different record labels who were hesitant to share the bill. So — except for a limited CD-ROM release in the early 1990s — the record went largely unheard by the wider world.

David Pescovitz, an editor at technology news website Boing Boing and a research director at the nonprofit Institute for the Future, was seven years old when the Voyager spacecraft launched.

"When you're seven years old and you hear that a group of people created a phonograph record as a message for possible extraterrestrials and launched it on a grand tour of the solar system," says Pescovitz, "it sparks the imagination."

A couple years ago, Pescovitz and his friend Tim Daly, a record store manager at Amoeba Music in San Francisco, decided to collaborate on bringing the Golden Record to an earthbound audience.

Pescovitz approached his former graduate school professor — none other than Ferris, the Golden Record's original producer — about the project, and Ferris gave his blessing, with one important caveat.

Voyagers' Records Wait for Alien Ears

"You can't release a record without remastering it," says Ferris. "And you can't remaster without locating the master."

That turned out to be a taller order than expected. The original records were mastered in a CBS studio, which was later acquired by Sony — and the master tapes had descended into Sony's vaults.

Pescovitz enlisted the company's help in searching for the master tapes; in the meantime, he and Daly got to work acquiring the rights for the music and photographs that comprised the original. They also reached out to surviving musicians whose work had been featured on the record to update incomplete track information.

Finally, Pescovitz and Daly got word that one of Sony's archivists had found the master tapes.

Pescovitz remembers the moment he, Daly and Ferris traveled to Sony's Battery Studios in New York City to hear the tapes for the first time.

"They hit play, and the sounds of the Solomon Islands pan pipes and Bach and Chuck Berry and the blues washed over us," Pescovitz says. "It was a very moving and sublime experience."

Daly says that, in remastering the album, the team decided not to clean up the analog artifacts that had made their way onto the original master tapes, in order to preserve the record's authenticity down to its imperfections.

"We wanted it to be a true representation of what went up," Daly says.

Pescovitz and Daly teamed up with Lawrence Azerrad, a graphic designer who has made record packaging for the likes of Sting and Wilco , to design a luxuriant box set, complete with a coffee table book of photographs and, of course, tinted vinyl.

"I mean, if you do a golden record box set, you have to do it on gold vinyl," Daly says.

They put the project on Kickstarter and expected to sell it mostly to vinyl collectors, space nerds and audiophiles — but they underestimated the appeal.

"The internet was just on fire, talking about this thing," Daly says.

They blew past their initial funding goal in two days, eventually raising more than $1.3 million dollars, making it the most successful musical Kickstarter campaign ever. Among the initial 11,000 contributors were family members of NASA's original Voyager mission team.

An Alien View Of Earth

Last week, Ferris got his box set in the mail. He says that his friend, the late Carl Sagan, would be delighted by what they made.

"I think this record exceeds Carl's — not only his expectations, but probably his highest hopes for a release of the Voyager record," Ferris says. "I'm glad these folks were finally able to make it happen."

Pescovitz says he's just glad to have returned the Golden Record to the world that created it.

At a moment of political division and media oversaturation, Pescovitz and Daly say they hope that their Golden Record can offer a chance for people to slow down for a moment; to gather around the turntable and bask in the crackly sounds of what Sagan called the "pale blue dot" that we call home.

"As much as it was a gift from humanity to the cosmos, it was really a gift to humanity as well," Pescovitz says. "It's a reminder of what we can accomplish when we're at our best."

Hear the Eerie Sounds of Interstellar Space Captured by NASA’s Voyager

As NASA’s Voyager 1 Surveys Interstellar Space, Its Density Measurements Are Making Waves

In the sparse collection of atoms that fills interstellar space, Voyager 1 has measured a long-lasting series of waves where it previously only detected sporadic bursts.

Until recently, every spacecraft in history had made all of its measurements inside our heliosphere, the magnetic bubble inflated by our Sun. But on August 25, 2012, NASA ’s Voyager 1 changed that. As it crossed the heliosphere’s boundary , it became the first human-made object to enter – and measure – interstellar space. Now eight years into its interstellar journey, a close listen of Voyager 1’s data is yielding new insights into what that frontier is like.

If our heliosphere is a ship sailing interstellar waters, Voyager 1 is a life raft just dropped from the deck, determined to survey the currents. For now, any rough waters it feels are mostly from our heliosphere’s wake. But farther out, it will sense the stirrings from sources deeper in the cosmos. Eventually, our heliosphere’s presence will fade from its measurements completely.

“We have some ideas about how far Voyager will need to get to start seeing more pure interstellar waters, so to speak,” said Stella Ocker, a Ph.D. student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and the newest member of the Voyager team. “But we’re not entirely sure when we’ll reach that point.”

Ocker’s new study, published on Monday in Nature Astronomy , reports what may be the first continuous measurement of the density of material in interstellar space. “This detection offers us a new way to measure the density of interstellar space and opens up a new pathway for us to explore the structure of the very nearby interstellar medium,” Ocker said.

When one pictures the stuff between the stars – astronomers call it the “interstellar medium,” a spread-out soup of particles and radiation – one might reimagine a calm, silent, serene environment. That would be a mistake.

“I have used the phrase ‘the quiescent interstellar medium’ – but you can find lots of places that are not particularly quiescent,” said Jim Cordes, space physicist at Cornell and co-author of the paper.

Like the ocean, the interstellar medium is full of turbulent waves. The largest come from our galaxy’s rotation, as space smears against itself and sets forth undulations tens of light-years across. Smaller (though still gigantic) waves rush from supernova blasts, stretching billions of miles from crest to crest. The smallest ripples are usually from our own Sun, as solar eruptions send shockwaves through space that permeate our heliosphere’s lining.

These crashing waves reveal clues about the density of the interstellar medium – a value that affects our understanding of the shape of our heliosphere, how stars form, and even our own location in the galaxy. As these waves reverberate through space, they vibrate the electrons around them, which ring out at characteristic frequencies depending on how crammed together they are. The higher the pitch of that ringing, the higher the electron density. Voyager 1’s Plasma Wave Subsystem – which includes two “bunny ear” antennas sticking out 30 feet (10 meters) behind the spacecraft – was designed to hear that ringing.

In November 2012, three months after exiting the heliosphere, Voyager 1 heard interstellar sounds for the first time (see video above). Six months later, another “whistle” appeared – this time louder and even higher pitched. The interstellar medium appeared to be getting thicker, and quickly.

These momentary whistles continue at irregular intervals in Voyager’s data today. They’re an excellent way to study the interstellar medium’s density, but it does take some patience.

“They’ve only been seen about once a year, so relying on these kinds of fortuitous events meant that our map of the density of interstellar space was kind of sparse,” Ocker said.

Ocker set out to find a running measure of interstellar medium density to fill in the gaps – one that doesn’t depend on the occasional shockwaves propagating out from the Sun. After filtering through Voyager 1’s data, looking for weak but consistent signals, she found a promising candidate. It started to pick up in mid-2017, right around the time of another whistle.

“It’s virtually a single tone,” said Ocker. “And over time, we do hear it change – but the way the frequency moves around tells us how the density is changing.”

Ocker calls the new signal a plasma wave emission, and it, too, appeared to track the density of interstellar space. When the abrupt whistles appeared in the data, the tone of the emission rises and falls with them. The signal also resembles one observed in Earth’s upper atmosphere that’s known to track with the electron density there.

“This is really exciting, because we are able to regularly sample the density over a very long stretch of space, the longest stretch of space that we have so far,” said Ocker. “This provides us with the most complete map of the density and the interstellar medium as seen by Voyager.”

Based on the signal, electron density around Voyager 1 started rising in 2013 and reached its current levels about mid-2015, a roughly 40-fold increase in density. The spacecraft appears to be in a similar density range, with some fluctuations, through the entire dataset they analyzed which ended in early 2020.

Ocker and her colleagues are currently trying to develop a physical model of how the plasma wave emission is produced that will be key to interpreting it. In the meantime, Voyager 1’s Plasma Wave Subsystem keeps sending back data farther and farther from home, where every new discovery has the potential to make us reimagining our home in the cosmos.

For more on this research, read In the Emptiness of Space 14 Billion Miles Away, Voyager I Detects “Hum” From Plasma Waves .

Reference: “Persistent plasma waves in interstellar space detected by Voyager 1” by Stella Koch Ocker, James M. Cordes, Shami Chatterjee, Donald A. Gurnett, William S. Kurth and Steven R. Spangler, 10 May 2021, Nature Astronomy . DOI: 10.1038/s41550-021-01363-7

The Voyager spacecraft were built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

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Hope someone loops the sample between the two high pitched spots. From 32 second to 36 second marks. Seem like a great mask for tinnitus pitch around 21 kHz.

Wow! It sure would! My tinnitus is really quite bad, but I almost couldn’t hear it during those few seconds.

Where is the sound?

In the video?

Don’t be a jackass Conrad

I thought there was no sound in space. I also thought nothing not even light can escape a black hole, yet they always report that black holes are emitting Jets of gamma rays and other stuff.

It is a radio wave, which happens to lie on an audible frequency (but else it is a popular presentation nowadays to translate frequency signals to sound).

Perhaps the paper title says it best: “Persistent plasma waves in interstellar space detected by Voyager 1”, The article is dumbing it down – I had to read the then no-paywall paper to understand what they see (and IIRC they find it likeliest that the nearest star is causing the emission, which is exciting).

Nothing comes out of a black hole. The gamma rays you mention are from materials just outside the black hole. Material falling into the black hole are accelerated to high speeds, and they collide with each other creating high temperatures. Those hot materials emit the radiation.

And you beleive all that bs.. lmbo

The only bs I am sure of is the uninformed tinfoil hat nonsense being typed by a few dunderheads hell bent on curing their fear of the unknown.

We will continue to follow the scientific method, you continue to type lmbo over and over like a demented parrot.

Sound cannot travel thru the vaccuum of space

As radio waves, it can.

Space is fake. Nothing can travel though fakery. Lmbo People sure love their space monkey fantasies. There is water above us and the Controllers dam well know this

Radiation can travel in a vacuum. Think of it like this. The suns sends its radiation out to through space, when the radiation hits our atmosphere it is converted and Thea Seth is warm compared to space. Radio waves are radiation. There is no sound if you were in space and the radio waves passed by. There must be something that receive that radiation and convert it to sound. For instance you can walk outside and you will not hear a huge garbled sound of all televisions and all radio stations. Even when you are not in a vacuum you don’t hear the radiation of tv and radio signals. You have to have some device that can “catch” the radiation and convert it into sound like an FM or AM radio station. Only your radio can catch that radiation and convert it into sound. Of course it is a little more to it than that, but hopefully helps your head to wrap around the idea. Radiation needs no medium to travel through, like our conventional sound waves from knocking on a door. Radiation travels through a vacuum.

Omg..were you taught that BS lie in school or is that your own theory?. lmbo

Just had to listen, being a common mortal, and so far away from interstellar space! Another first for NASA’s JPL and I will assume that there are many more pleasant surprises in store for all of us to marvel at. The whistling hum; way-spacey! Enjoy.

My tinnitus is annoying me extremely right now. I’m willing to try anything!

If you are serious about having tinnitus, there are effective treatments. Usually you see an Ears Nose and Throat specialists. Mine got really bad in the 1990s. There were different treatments then, and I imagine more so today. What worked for me was “attenuation therapy”. They give a hearing aid like device that emitted a white noise which covered up the ringing. Eventually, my brain started to tune out the constant white noise. It took a while, but once my brain tuned out the white noise the ringing was tuned out. My quality of life vastly improved. In the beginning they actually put a very tiny microphone into my ear canal to see if there really any noise. There wasn’t, so they new they were dealing with real tinnitus and not a structural deportation. My primary doc kept telling me there was nothing you could do about it. He was wrong. There are doctors who specialize just in tinnitus.

The first ‘blast’of sound of plasma is the initial shock wave; the second is the second is the true sound yet echoing.

Sounds a little agitated.

Humpback whale song

People actually believe this?

I said the same thing..fakery for sure.

And people actually buy this bs as real. Lmbo

It’s remarkable we are still receiving science data from these OLD, relatively primitive machines. They are sending extremely weak signals across billions of miles and we can still hear them. Amazing.

And, of course we hear from the deniers who immediately doubt anything they don’t understand. Surprised they haven’t accidentally fallen off the edge of the Earth.

And you actually beleive it? Lmbo

You call us deniars. I was indoctintated just like you all my life. Programmed. It’s time to come to reality friend. They have been deceiving us. We are not a spinning marble with water miraculously sticking to us like glue. Ridiculous in itself. Goes against your senses anyway. There is water above us and they dam well know it. They cannot and will not ever get past the firmament. You have been programmed all your life to beleive this and most will not research past their noses. They like being fooled

Indeed. It’s amazing they leave the house with pants on quite honestly.

You make jokes about the edge of the earth…lol And there is an obvious ice wall around us. Of course you will say that’s not so. But it dam well is. And the leaders of the world know it. The Antarctic treaty. Where you and I cannot go. But you will beleive something much more fairly talish like a spinning marble rotating a 1000 mph miraculously holding water to while moving 67,000 mph through space..lmbo fairy tail much

Yeah that’s called gravity school boy ,,plus untill you get on a plane and flys around the earth dont talk your stupid ideals …that’s all u have is a ideal to run with

And you beleivethe bs… dam you people are indoctrinated and or programmed. Think for yourself and use common sense

Science is about testing hypotheses and changing those hypotheses if the data doesn’t support it. So prove it. Go find your ice wall. Don’t come back until you do.

Just go to the Antarctic. That’s your Ice wall..go north south east or west and you will run into it. You beleive in spinning marble but an ice wall in somehow out of the question. I laugh at you people There is no OUTER SPACE. You have been fooled.

Sounded ok until the end bit then it went high pitch I squinted too but like other comments we are not spinning on a ball it tells you in Genesis job and few more scriptures they only brought a globe into our heads cuz of copernicus but ancient tribes allsaid and showed earth was flat.anyway no stars are under earth no rain can fall up!!

When your actually out of grade school and have a clue what your saying…try putting anything like water or a ball of dirt ina vacuum and wait and watch how gravity forces all. Matter into it’s most simist form and that’s a ball just like the moon and sun you dummy

Joe keep up the desperate antics that make no dam sense. The earth is not a spinning magic marble and gravity is man made bulls#!t lie

I know you did not just say that bunch of BS…did you? Common sense should prevail. The world is so dumbed down by the lies/programming of these luciferians that cant see two feet in front of them. You included. We laugh at you. You are the ones in the fairytale.

I was talking to you Joe

In space nobody can hear you scream “bulls#!t’

It’s turtles all the way down Pfft. Fools.

I can’t believe you kids—gravity holds water to this blue & green ball. And no, the Earth is not flat. THAT is ridiculous

Oh. You mean that made up bunch garbage to fit their scientific theory? Gravity is joke. Pure fantasy. And you accuse commonsense of being crazy. A flat plain just sounds so crazy…lmbo. But magic gravity sounds so logical…lmbo Get out of your programming

Ya know all that crap about nothing can escape a black hole is only a theory plus how do they know if atoms or light photons are jus bouncing off the event HORIZON and. Your so called hole is actually some giant natural collider that creates new particles out of old stuff!

Oh my goodness Joe. You beleive in theories? Lmbo And Accuse us of being in grade school. Can you please stop repeating like a parrot what the liars taught you in school. Think for yourself and look up in the sky and start researching yourself. You wont. Cause you like being spoonfed BS.

Seems like an odd way to lie about something (intricate, detailed, boring, scientific terminology)… To no real end goal, as the ‘stories’ of space don’t ask or persuade me to any specific task.

People that actually deny science never seem to have any method to prove their own beliefs… I guess that’s because they would need to provide some type of evidence, maybe with some odd method, maybe call it (schnience)

You mean psuedoscience

Nice Masonic pose in your picture

JY you can go to Antarctica. It not off limits. Those countries signed that treaty to prevent military bases from being build. The world doesn’t have some weird water ring around it? Lmao. Where the hell did you gear that? History channel (Ancient Aliens) Or do you study scientology? World is flat?

Quick question? What does the science community gain by saying Voyager is picking up radiation waves? Nothing. It makes no difference to our everyday lives. What does the (plasma wave subsystem antennas) do on Voyager? What’s your degree in? Stop acting like everything is a conspiracy theory. You know nothing and ONLY follow conspiracy theories. Attach others when they challenge you. JY you are lame

You are so full of sh*t..no you cannot go to the Antarctic. Only on tours…lmbo Where they say you can go…you programmed fool…

You are a programmed fool…lmbo They gain control by keeping the masses dumbed down. You lame excuse for a supposed educated person. Lmbo I am so sick and tired of trying to wake your asses up to these luciferian controllers. With their satanic ball earth. You cannot go freely to the Antarctic you idiot. You can only tour where they will let you. Lmbo Dam you people are dumb as rocks and clueless. Try going there by yourself you fool and walking around. Lmbo.

To boldly go for no man has gone before… One big leap for men one giant leap for all…..

Lmao sound in a supposed vacuum. If you buy into this they have a bridge to sell you

JY is a hilarious troll so many people falling into the trap.

No…I am awake. You are either the real troll or part a programmed fool.

These people like JY that claim this is fake are scary. They are seriously messed up and need YEARS of therapy. YEARS. Amazing still they use GPS, Watch TV, and enjoy the internet never realizing that is because 9f SATELLITES in SPACE. Wow special kind of ignorant.

And we wonder why the WORLD laughs at us? We wonder how losers like Taylor Greene and Trump get elected? It’s because of simple minded ignorance like this guy. And of the Earth was flat, how would a plane fly die East and end up on the West Coast? Or are airplanes now a hoax and the devil?

You need help.

I dont watch TV and ththe internet has nothing to do satellites. It has everything to do with cell tower and under water cables. You are so smart. Let see. The earth is spinning 1000 mph. The satellite TV connects to the satellite moving 17,000 mph… somehow stays connected to it when it moves to the other side if the world. Lol…you people are the crazy ones to beleive the bulls#!t. Use your dam common sense. Cell towers people. Not satellites. They are lieing to us. I am awake to the scam. And by the way. GOD is real. And you better wake up. The devil and real and he is fooling you. And you beleive the opposite of way you should. Common sense tells you we are stable and not moving. Wow. What a bunch of programmed fools.

I dont watch TV and ththe internet has nothing to do satellites. It has everything to do with cell tower and under water cables. You are so smart. Let see. The earth is spinning 1000 mph. The satellite TV connects to the satellite moving 17,000 mph… somehow stays connected to it when it moves to the other side if the world. Lol…you people are the crazy ones to beleive the bulls#!t. Use your dam common sense. Cell towers people. Not satellites. They are lieing to us. I am awake to the scam. And by the way. GOD is real. And you better wake up. And you beleive the opposite of way you should. Common sense tells you we are stable and not moving. Wow. What a bunch of programmed fools.

The amount of anti-science people on this page is astounding. JY is the moon flat? Is Mars flat too? The Earth is a globe. People can and do visit Antarctica on their own. The only thing stopping you as an individual is money. Use enough amd take whatever supplies you will need and book the ship time. The Earth is round. Proven time and time again using different methods of science and math. Not one of you flat earth people can back up your claims in legitimate math or science. Curvature of the earth is a real thing. Plasma particles being translated into audio is rather simple. Stars do put off radio waves which can be translated into audible sounds as well.

It has not been proven time and time again. That is nothing but a lie. It gets so tiring with people like you making comments like it been proven that the earth is spinning 1000 mph whirling 67,000 mph through infinite nothing. That is such a lie. It’s all theory and make up bulls#!t. That’s your may of continuing the programming of their minds. It’s pure programming and indoctrination.

Mars is really just a desert on earth you programmed little boy.

You sure believe alot BS. Dont you? Lmbo How in the world do you people let them feed you such bull*** is beyond me.. You believe their fake Masonic math lol.. Cant even get real pictures of Earth. All CGI. And you people beleive these liars. Curvature has not been proven at all. Its smoke and mirrors. Fish eyed lenses. And if you calculate the math they use it doesn’t even add up anyway.lol All I see I flat land. No dam curvature at all. The dam problem is the programming of weak minds that think they are wise. You have no wisdom at all. You are a fed machine that only follows instructions with any reasoning or common sense

I’m glad you enjoyed the song. Now get back to work!

Idiots!!!!!

TY, you sound like the only one that is programmed. So everything to you is a hoax? Guess there is no sun either? I mean, how could a ball of fire remain in a circle? Or is the sun flat too? Your brainwashed. Good luck with your fantasy.

You poor brainwashed soul. I wish I could wake you guys up. But it hopeless for the majority of this programmed world

TY. Who programmed you ? You are clueless. Never take a long walk, you’ll fall off. But where? There’s nothing there, right? So the Sun must be flat too. Or are we just someone’s science experiment?

I have common sense…lol No one programmed me….a spinning marble hurdling through infinite nothing moving at ungodly speeds through the vacuum of space..lmbo ridiculous. That makes so much more sense them a flare non moving plain. I can see with my own eyes we are not moving. You are programmed

The Sun and moon are both lights. They give off there own light. But you beleive this stupid made up bs that the sun light reflects off the moon. Totally ridiculous. But then the programmed minds beleive anything. Once again common sense should prevail

If light can travel through space, I can’t see why sounds can also. If anything can I believe sounds can, but die off at some point.

Be sure that your thinking doesnt fall flat. The world Is round.Some things cant be fully shared until they are more in the known than guessing. But in reality,unless you sitting in the craft we have to trust the judgement of those interpreting the data. Give them a break at least some one on the blue marble is thinking outside The Box, or in this case outside the Bubble.

Sorry buddy the blue marble is a satanic lie. Your senses tell you something else. Look up in the sky. We are not moving. Foolishness.

Sorry my mistake after doing some actual research the earth is round and space does exist

Nice try the fake JY…

Simply fascinating!

JY was more interesting than the initial article. I feel I that I really want to learn more about his logic and his world. Feels like we are all different beings living in the same space time but somehow in different brain realities.

My life is pretty boring with normal ppl …I ve never heard in my life someone refering the moon and sun as light…still they are round. When I was a kid I enjoyed watching the boats at see and after a while they disappear. I have been wondering about that since then I am sure the real JY will tell me why everyone can see boats disappear once the go far away from the sea. Usually water is not round so why how do boats disappear on the horizon??

Read your Bible science man. Its says the moon and Sun are both lights. Makes perfect sense to me. You expect me to beleive you have never heard that before? Lmbo Your pseudoscience is your god/religon. All fakery and made up bs that makes no logical sense but people buy it as real. Your senses tell you something totally different science man. You can clearly see we are not moving and you can clearly see water finds its level. So go crawl back under your rock and continue your brainwashing.

Btw Science man. You can easily use a P900 camera and pull the boat right back into view. So if it went over the Horizon or supposed fake curve then you would not be able to bring it back it to view but you can. Btw. Have you ever heard of perspective? Science fiction people only use it when it benefits their cause. The earth is a Plain with nice mountains and valleys. Its circular just like the Bible says. Not a spinning hurdling water ball. Lmbo

Yet you beleive in a spinning water ball…moving though infinite nothing at ungodly speeds while spinning 1000 mph. And I beleive in MAGIC…lmbo Woe to the hypocrites of pseudoscience bs.

Whoever this jy is, you are a credit to stupidity. Since you dont understand science at any level, please stop wasting everyone’s time by showing your infinite ignorance and get back to your xbox and blunts like a good little boy. We are all privileged to be witness to a connection beyond our solar domain. P.S. jy, that means our solar system.

You mean credit to common sense and logic. Thank you very much

JY I have red the Bible a few times and a few versions too. Which one are u reading?

Its full of nice stories like people that can live inside a fish. A dude that walks on water. Women go gets converted into a statue. Cities that crumble because a magical box. I use to believe in all this stuff cause I was a kid and was living in a city that every one believe it… But I also believed in Santa Claus and unicorns and Peter Pan…we also have books for those stories.

All books made. Written and reprinted by men.

Bible is a bit outdated cause that God allows slavery..and violence. It also seems to favor men over women so not really a team player but really like the first miracle… Multiple the wine… That’s a strong message out all possible things that could be done to fix this world he choses as his first miracle to produce more wine… Each time someone says something when I am drinking…I remind them that wine is approved by God. Not only approved but he wanted everyone to drink more otherwise why produce more? That is a strong message to send to the humans and for eternity.

I don’t know how hell looks like but I am sure there must be good wine in heaven 🙂

Well when I was a kid red as a kid…I walked like a kid and I believed magical stories like Santa…but eventually I grew up and learn to read other books and think for myself and I don’t need to believe in Santa anymore to enjoy Christmas or to believe in unicorns to enjoy movies and stories… neither I need Bibles to live my life in a respectful and healthy way. And I don’t need heaven or hell to understand what is constructive or destructive. It’s nice to see that some ppl still believe in magic even as adults…I wonder if u write letters to Santa and think there’s a magical world waiting for your somewhere…but you need to send 200 000 comments on the internets before you’re allowed in??

Wait a minute Mr. 666…Who believes in magic? A spinning marble hurdling through infinite nothing while water sticks to it seems a little more like magic than a flat non moving plain. Lmbo Where you can observe with your own eyes that we are spinning 1000mph. Lmbo…BTW Santa Claus is really Satan Claus. Unscramble the word. Your Masonic 666 brothers made up the satanic ball earth and Santa/satan claus. Either you are asleep and indoctrinated/programmed like 99 percent of the world or your are a Masonic troll. There is a God brother. It’s funny how you believe Faith all bulls#!t fed to you by the liars but somehow God and a creator is crazy to you…Wow. It’s obvious there is a Creator. Intelligent design all around you…A fool beleives in his own heart that there is not a God. Now wake up before die and face judgment.

You can believe or not believe in God. You have a free will. Take your chances. Forfeiting your soul for an eternity is forever my friend. A fool beleives in his own that there is not a God. Creation is in your face. To act like you dont see it is dumb.

JY I don’t need to believe in any God to find a purpose and be happy and don’t care about paradises or hell I have enough with one.

Ppl that need to believe in God’s are weak. They can’t face reality just like kids …they need Santa…some ppl need God’s to stay stable and live through reality. You were endoctrinated by your mommy n now that endoctrination makes you feel good. It is ok not being able to go against what mommy told you. That would mean pain. Just like facing reality that u will never see ppl that died is painful. Painful like you will also die like everyone else and nobody will care cause we’re only dust in the wind my friend. So which story is the painful one? Face the painful reality takes courage and one needs to be strong to accept it. Thinking that there’s a magical dude that will take care of all my issues and give me immortality is very easy but weak. Makes you feel good but those are just feelings. I you had more money you could buy a boat and sail around the world and see it for yourself. If u were not poor you could buy a jet and drive around and see it for yourself. If I could I would send you for a trip to space so u could see it for yourself but I don’t have 20 million yet. And you would probably refuse to go because that would mean discovering of the painful reality.

It is easier and more pleasant for me to believe in God’s than it is for u to face the painful reality. You will die playing a god and I will die reading where voyager 1 and 2 are by that time and will be thinking…what a nice ride they had and one day they will crash into a planet or a black hole. Eventually everything dies and no one comes back. But u are free to believe otherwise if that makes you feel good. But remember…those are just feelings 🙂

Die in your Sin Mr 666. Its your soul. You wont be talking like this when you are standing before the Almighty.

The earth is not a spinning water ball friend. Regardless of what you think. They are lying to us. Learn how the Elite communicate worldwide. Learn signs and symbols and numbers. Its how they speak. Once you learn their language. It’s clear what is really going on here. Stay blind and decieved. This world is literally ran on signs symbols and numerolgy. That’s also in your face. But you will never see it. You like being controlled. The Elite of decievers are at the top of the pyramid. They bottom are just cattle. Good luck with you programming.

Jy you need help bro space is not fake you have to be dumb as sh*t to believe that, space is real, asteriods, there is 100% factual science, nearly 80 years of evidence by experts an scientist who most of which btw dont work for the government an whos only interest is to learn about the things around our round planet, you know what they call space, your theory has no evidence or facts or findings to back up what you say. I recommend reading a book or two do your own research space is real, planets are real, and our earth is not flat it is round. Eduacate yourself just a tip

Boy you folks dont give up. Space is FAKE. EVERYTHING NASA gives you is smoke and mirrors. I was indoctintated just like you space monkeys. I have done plenty of research on my own to see that NASA is lying to us along with all the fake space agencies around the world. Water always finds it level. I don’t give a crap what scientific rebuttal you come up with. One more time. WATER ALWAYS FINDS ITS LEVEL. The Sun and moon or local. It’s obvious to anyone awake and willing to stop being programmed by these luciferians that control the world system. I always see flat land. Gravity is impossible if you actually just use your dam common sense God gave you. It’s made up bulls#!t to fit their scientific theory. That’s all it is. You are so indoctrinated you take everthing they tell you as truth. All they give us is CGI. They lost the technology to go back to the Moon but they can travel millions of miles further to Mars…lmbo Wake up blind fools. Its funny how they have the ability to control a rover millions of miles away though a computer and when it breaks down it fixes itself.. lmbo A super machine..lol

You are programmed. You repeat like a parrot what you been fed all fed all your life.

I almost missed the video in the flood of other ads on the page.

I hope you know that sound is something like animal or humanoid being Istanbul not space sounds but it the could pin point the exact location or close by with the hubble they might find a planet with life, on it the question is thier someone thier , I recognize the sound that of a cry out

Your kidding right? Lmbo

This guy with the ice wall surrounding the earth is funny I flew around the earth it’s round and not surrounded by an ice wall.

I am sure you have.lmbo Nothing any of you programmed sheep say will ever change the fact that we do lot live on a spinning magic water ball.

Magic ice walls and magic souls that live forever floating around sounds retarded. Maybe JY is just a retarded that was brainwashed by his religious parents. Poor person…

You mean magic spinning marble moving through infinite nothing at 67,000 mph…lmbo Sound a little more like fantasy than a non moving plain. Boy you folks have logic backwards….🤣🤣🤣🤣

Keep mocking God. How do you think you got here you very foolish person? Intelligence design all around you and you choose to beleive in magic. Wow. All this came from noth in nothing. Now that’s magic.

I think NASA is bitch n fags all lairs they could go to hell where they belong

Well they are all liars and freemason/luciferians.

JY I haven’t laughed so hard in ages, thank you so much. I’m stunned you hang around on these pages to embarrass yourself, your preaching should be on the stage or street corner it’s hilarious 😆🤣😂😄! Why are you even reading articles like this if you don’t believe? Lmao! I can’t stop laughing 😆🤣😂😭! I guess the dinosaurs are also a conspiracy!? Ice walls 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣, water in the sky🤣🤣😂, I can’t take anymore my sides are aching!!! Brilliant

Putting little laughing emojis is not going to change the fact that you are a brainwashed troll. Rovers and helicopters that fix themselves and fly by remote control millions of miles away…now that deserves an emoji.🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

If JY was for real… I would pay to see this guy and his conception of universe and earth it is so far fetched and originally retarded like if he had missed the last 200 years of science LoL I ended here cause I want to read about science and space but I wonder how did JY ended here .. is he trying to convert ppl ? LoL 😂 I wonder how many people he has converted so far…in the internets lol all these lost internet souls LoL 😂

Jy is loopy

ok lets carry the discussion to another level by thinking about speed of think… i gues it will overcome the light speed obviously and ppl discussing abt illusions and/or reality as if anyone able to understand what they are we call ourselves as a human being by compare to other souls but how abt if we are also hoax dream in the dream or just a echoes of the some creature which exist at zillion light years ..conclusion GOD exist ! if not pls advise what is a spirit and how its created by who and its appearance…. we are enjoying the message comes from the location where its out of our dimensions and we are the so luckiest ones that can hear it with a single click.there may be another dimensions which control the earth but eventually all the beings are subject to return to the Creator which we call GOD .

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Greetings to the Universe in 55 Different Languages

A golden phonograph record was attached to each of the Voyager spacecraft that were launched almost 25 years ago. One of the purposes was to send a message to extraterrestrials who might find the spacecraft as the spacecraft journeyed through interstellar space. In addition to pictures and music and sounds from earth, greetings in 55 languages were included.

NASA asked Dr Carl Sagan of Cornell University to assemble a greeting and gave him the freedom to choose the format and what would be included. Because of the launch schedule, Sagan (and those he got to help him) was not given a lot of time. Linda Salzman Sagan was given the task of assembling the greetings.

The story behind the creation of the "interstellar message" is chronicled in the book, "Murmurs of Earth", by Carl Sagan, et al. Unfortunately, not much information is given about the individual speakers. Many of the speakers were from Cornell University and the surrounding communities. They were given no instructions on what to say other than that it was to be a greeting to possible extraterrestrials and that it must be brief. The following is an excerpt by Linda Salzman Sagan from the book:

"During the entire Voyager project, all decisions were based on the assumption that there were two audiences for whom the message was being prepared - those of us who inhabit Earth and those who exist on the planets of distant stars.

"We were principally concerned with the needs of people on Earth during this section of the recording. We recorded messages from populations all over the globe, each representative speaking in the language of his or her people, instead of sending greetings in one or two languages accompanied by keys for their decipherment. We were aware that the latter alternative might have given the extraterrestrials a better chance of understanding the words precisely, though it would have raised the thorny question of which two languages to send. We felt it was fitting that Voyager greet the universe as a representative of one community, albeit a complex one consisting of many parts. At least the fact that many different languages are represented should be clear from the very existence of a set of short statements separated by pauses and from internal evidence - such as the initial greeting "Namaste," which begins many of the greetings from the Indian subcontinent. The greetings are an aural Gestalt, in which each culture is a contributing voice in the choir. After all, by sending a spaceship out of our solar system, we are making an effort to de-provincialize, to rise above our nationalistic interests and join a commonwealth of space-faring societies, if one exists.

"We made a special effort to record those languages spoken by the vast majority of the world's inhabitants. Since all research and technical work on the record had to be accomplished within a period of weeks, we began with a list of the world's most widely spoken languages, which was provided by Dr. Steven Soter of Cornell. Carl suggested that we record the twenty-five most widely spoken languages. If we were able to accomplish that, and still had time, we would then try to include as many other languages as we could.

"The organization of recording sessions and the arduous legwork involved in finding, contacting and convincing individual speakers was handled by Shirley Arden, Carl's executive assistant, Wendy Gradison, then Carl's editorial assistant, Dr. Steven Soter, and me. The master table, reproduced on pages 134 through 143, which shows each of the languages, the speaker's name, their comments in the original language, an English translation, and the real and fractional number of human beings who speak that language, was largely Shirley's idea. We contacted various members of the Cornell language departments, who cooperated with us on very short notice and provided numerous speakers, even though school was ending and many people were leaving for summer vacations. Other speakers were more difficult to find. sometimes it meant sitting for hours, telephoning friends of friends who might know someone who could speak, let's say, the Chinese Wu dialect. After finding such a person, we had to determine whether he or she would be available during the hours when the recording sessions had been scheduled. Even while the recording sessions were going on, we were still trying to find and recruit speakers of languages not yet represented. Often people waiting to record would suggest names of individuals fluent in the very languages we were looking for. Immediately we called those people, explained the project and our plight, and asked them to come at once. Many people did just that.

"Bishun Khare, a senior physicist in the Laboratory for Planetary Studies, was responsible almost singlehandedly for the participation of the Indian speakers. He personally called friends and member of the Cornell Indian community, explaining the undertaking to them and asked for and received their cooperation.

"There were only a few disappointments, where someone had agreed to come to a recording session, could not and forgot to let us know in time for us to make other arrangements. It wasn't always possible to find replacements at the last minute, so there are some regrettable omissions - Swahili is one."

All the greetings, written in the appropriate language, translated to English, and with the name of the speakers, are included in the book. A CD-ROM, which accompanied the 1992 version of the book, included the spoken versions.

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Record, voyager, sounds of earth, object details, related content.

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Voyagers 1 and 2 both carry a Golden Record, intended to play the sounds of our planet for any advanced extraterrestrials who might one day find a lonely spacecraft and wonder what the people who built it were like. The sound files—which include animals, vehicles, music, and more—were already available individually on the NASA Voyager website . Now that they're on Soundcloud, though, you can enjoy them as the full playlist they were intended to be:

Source: Popular Science

Andrew's from Nebraska. His work has also appeared in Discover, The Awl, Scientific American, Mental Floss, Playboy, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn with two cats and a snake.

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Translating NASA Data Into Sound

There’s a new, immersive way to explore NASA’s data of our Universe. NASA has taken observational data from telescopes like NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope and others, and translated it into corresponding frequencies that can be heard by the human ear.  A team of scientists, musicians, and a member of the blind and visually impaired community worked to adapt the NASA data. The audio tracks support blind and low-vision listeners first, but are designed to be captivating to anyone who tunes in.

James Webb Space Telescope Sonifications

Explore infrared images and data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope through sound. Listeners can enter the soundscape of the Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula, explore the tones of the Southern Ring Nebula, and hear data from the transmission spectrum of an exoplanet.

• Webb’s Exoplanet WASP-96 b Sonification
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• Webb’s Southern Ring Nebula Sonification: Near-Infrared
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• Webb’s Cosmic Cliffs Sonification: Stars
• Webb’s Cosmic Cliffs Sonification: Mountains
• Webb’s Cosmic Cliffs Sonification: Sky
• Webb’s Cosmic Cliffs Sonification

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and K.Arcand (CXC/SAO), M.Russo & A.Santaguida (SYSTEM Sounds), Q.Hart & C.Blome (STScI), and C.Malec (consultant).

• Hubble Space Telescope Sonifications

Ever wondered what the music of the spheres would sound like? Hubble brings us cosmic sights, but these astronomical marvels can be experienced with other senses as well. Through data sonification, the same digital data that gets translated into images is transformed into sound.

Elements of the image, like brightness and position, are assigned pitches and volumes. No sound can travel in space, but sonifications provide a new way of experiencing and conceptualizing data. Sonifications allow the audience, including blind and visually impaired communities, to “listen” to astronomical images and explore their data.

Chandra X-ray Observatory Sonifications

Sonification is the process that translates data into sound, and Chandra’s sound project brings our high-energy Universe to listeners for the first time. Listen to data translated from exploded stars, areas around black holes, clusters of stars and more. 

• Galactic Center
• Cassiopeia A
• M16/Pillars of Creation
• Bullet Cluster
• Crab Nebula
• Supernova 1987A (SN 87A)
• Eta Carinae
• Sagittarius A* (Event Horizon Telescope Image)
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• Messier 51 (M51)
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Credit: NASA, SAO, CXC, and K.Arcand (CXC/SAO), M.Russo & A.Santaguida (SYSTEM Sounds), and C.Malec (consultant).

Sounds of Artemis I Moon Rocket Launch

Listen to the sounds of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket roaring to life and lifting off from the launch pad for the first time. The Moon rocket, carrying the Orion spacecraft atop, launched the Artemis I test flight from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1:47 a.m. EST on Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022.  As the rocket launched, NASA launch commentator Derrol Nail said, “We rise together, back to the Moon – and beyond.”

Artemis I is the first in a series of increasingly complex missions to the Moon. With Artemis, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the lunar surface and establish long-term exploration at the Moon in preparation for human missions to Mars.

Aug 15, 2023

MPEG (199.92 KB)

We Rise Together

Aug 14, 2023

MPEG (174.61 KB)

Sounds of Mars from Perseverance Rover

• First Audio Recording of Sounds on Mars

This recording was made by the SuperCam instrument on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on Feb. 19, 2021, just about 18 hours after landing on the mission’s first sol or Martian day. The rover’s mast, holding the microphone, was still stowed on Perseverance’s deck, and so the sound is muffled, a little like the sound one hears listening to a seashell or having a hand cupped over the ear. Just a little wind can be heard. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/ISAE-Supaero

• Perseverance Rover’s SuperCam Records Wind on Mars

This recording was made on Feb. 22, 2021, on the fourth sol (Martian day) by the SuperCam instrument on NASA’s Perseverance rover after deployment of the rover’s mast. It provides a different overall sound than the SuperCam audio recording from the mission’s first sol. Some wind can be heard, especially around 20 seconds into the recording. Rover background sounds have been removed. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/ISAE-Supaero

• First Acoustic Recording of Laser Shots on Mars

This is the first acoustic recording of laser impacts on a rock target on Mars from March 2, 2021, the 12th sol (Martian day) from Perseverance’s SuperCam instrument. The sounds of 30 impacts are heard, some slightly louder than others. Variations in the intensity of the zapping sounds will provide information on the physical structure of the targets, such as its relative hardness or the presence of weathering coatings. The target, Máaz (“Mars” in Navajo), was about 10 feet (3.1 m) away. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/ISAE-Supaero

• NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter in Flight  

For the first time, a spacecraft on another planet has recorded the sounds of a separate spacecraft. NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its SuperCam microphone to listen to the Ingenuity helicopter on April 30, 2021 as it flew on Mars for the fourth time. With Perseverance parked 262 feet (80 meters) from the helicopter’s takeoff and landing spot, the mission wasn’t sure if the microphone would pick up any sound of the flight. Even during flight when the helicopter’s blades are spinning at 2,537 rpm, the sound is greatly muffled by the thin Martian atmosphere. It is further obscured by Martian wind gusts during the initial moments of the flight. Listen closely, though, and the helicopter’s hum can be heard faintly above the sound of those winds. Scientists made the audio, which is recorded in mono, easier to hear by isolating the 84 hertz helicopter blade sound, reducing the frequencies below 80 hertz and above 90 hertz, and increasing the volume of the remaining signal. Some frequencies were clipped to bring out the helicopter’s hum Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/ISAE-Supaéro

• NASA’s Perseverance Records a Martian Dust Devil

This audio shows the results of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover using its  SuperCam  microphone to record the sounds of a Martian dust devil – the first time any such recording has been made. The dust devil passed directly over Perseverance on Sept. 27, 2021, the 215th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/INTA-CSIC/Space Science Institute/ISAE-Supaero

• Perseverance Rover Records Puffs and Pings of Gaseous Dust Removal Tool
• Perseverance Rover Records Puffs and Pings of Gaseous Dust Removal Tool (filtered)

This recording was made by the Perseverance Mars rover on February 9, 2022 (Sol 346). The puffs and pings of the rover’s Gaseous Dust Removal Tool (gDRT) were collected using a microphone on the rover’s chassis. The gRDT has a tank of nitrogen gas and is used during sample collection to blow the dust away and reveal the fresh rock surface underneath. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

• Sounds of Perseverance Mars Rover Driving – Sol 16 (16 minutes)

Listen to 16 minutes of raw, unfiltered sounds of the Perseverance Mars rover traveling in Jezero Crater. The noise generated by the interaction of the rover’s wheels and suspension with the surface can be heard, along with a high-pitched scratching noise. Perseverance’s engineering team continues to evaluate the source of the scratching noise, which may either be electromagnetic interference from one of the rover’s electronics boxes or interactions between the rover mobility system and the Martian surface. The entry, descent, and landing microphone was not intended for surface operations and had limited testing in this configuration before launch. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

• Sounds of Perseverance Mars Rover Driving – Sol 16 (90-second highlights)

NASA engineers combined three segments from the raw audio file recorded while the Perseverance Mars rover rolled across a section of Jezero Crater on sol 16 of the mission. Sections 0:20-0:45, 6:40-7:10, and 14:30-15:00 were combined into this 90-second highlight clip. There has been processing and editing to filter out some of the noise. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

• Sounds from Mars – Filters out rover self-noise
• Sounds from Mars – Includes rover self-noise

Audio of Juno’s Ganymede Flyby

Hear radio emissions collected during Juno’s June 7, 2021, flyby of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/Univ of Iowa

• Audio of Juno’s Ganymede Flyby

Sounds of Mars from InSight Lander

• “Dinks and donks” from InSight’s seismometer

A recording of “dinks and donks,” strange sounds created by friction inside of InSight’s seismometer, called SEIS. Scientists aren’t entirely sure what causes each of these sounds, by they are created by parts inside the seismometer contracting as they cool down, especially during sunset. These were recorded on just after sundown on July 16, 2019 (Sol 226).

• Magnitude 3.3 marsquake from July 25, 2019

A recording of a magnitude 3.3 marsquake from InSight’s seismometer, called SEIS. This quake was recorded on July 25, 2019 (Sol 235). Far below the human range of hearing, this sonification from SEIS had to be sped up and slightly processed to be audible through headphones.

• Magnitude 3.7 marsquake from May 22, 2019

A recording of a magnitude 3.7 marsquake from InSight’s seismometer, called SEIS. This quake was recorded on May 22, 2019 (the 173rd Martian day, or sol, of the mission). Far below the human range of hearing, this sonification from SEIS had to be sped up and slightly processed to be audible through headphones.

• Sounds of InSight’s robotic arm

A recording of sounds created by InSight’s robotic arm as its camera scanned the surface of Mars on March 6, 2019, the 98th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Also captured are wind gusts and “dinks” produced by friction inside of InSight’s seismometer, called SEIS.

• Raw Sounds from InSight’s Seismometer on Mars (full length)

A subwoofer or earphones are needed to hear this clip.  Listen to raw, unprocessed data from the seismometer on NASA’s InSight spacecraft of vibrations caused by wind moving over the solar panels on Mars. The sounds were recorded by two of the three short-period sensors on the seismometer (SEIS).

• Raw Sounds from InSight’s Seismometer on Mars (short clip)

A subwoofer or earphones are needed to hear this clip.  Listen to raw, unprocessed data from the seismometer on NASA’s InSight spacecraft of vibrations caused by wind moving over the solar panels on Mars.  The sounds were recorded by two of the three short-period sensors on the seismometer (SEIS).

• More Audible Sounds from InSight’s Seismometer on Mars

Listen to data from the seismometer on NASA’s InSight spacecraft of vibrations caused by Martian wind moving over the lander’s solar panels. In this version, the data have been processed to raise the frequencies by two octaves to make them more audible.

• Sounds from InSight’s Pressure Sensor on Mars

Listen to data from the air pressure sensor on NASA’s InSight lander, indicating wind blowing by on Mars. The data were sped up by a factor of 100, shortening the duration of the recording and shifting it up in frequency 100 times (a little more than six octaves).

Third Rock Radio

NASA’s mission of discovery and exploration is being showcased in a custom-produced Internet music radio station that is crafted specifically to speak the language of tech-savvy young adults. Third Rock – America’s Space Station offers listeners a New Rock/Indie/Alternative format. The station is being developed and operated at no cost to the government through a Space Act Agreement with Houston-based RFC Media. Third Rock also will help partner companies fill high-tech job openings in the engineering, science and IT fields. Visit  Third Rock.

• Visit Third Rock

NASA on Soundcloud

Explore the universe and discover our home planet with NASA through a collection of our sounds from historic spaceflights and current missions. You can hear the roar of a  space shuttle launch  or Neil Armstrong’s  “One small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind”  every time you get a phone call if you make our sounds your ringtone. Or, you can hear the memorable words  “Houston, we’ve had a problem,”  every time you make an error on your computer. For sound file use policy, please see  Media Usage Guidelines .

• Visit NASA on Soundcloud

Here’s a collection of sounds from the space shuttle Discovery. We have included both MP3 and M4R (iPhone) sound files to download. Note: M4R files must be downloaded and imported via iTunes. They will not play in your browser.

• Discovery – APU shutdown
• Discovery – Computers are in control
• Discovery – Go at throttle up (1)
• Discovery – Go at throttle up (2)
• Discovery – Go for deploy
• Discovery – Good Picture of Steve
• Discovery – Houston Discovery
• Discovery – Houston Discovery 2
• Discovery – How do you read
• Discovery – Lookin’ at it
• Discovery – MECO
• Discovery – Nice to be in orbit
• Discovery – On its way to orbit
• Discovery – Press to ATO
• Discovery – Roger roll
• Discovery – STS-26 Liftoff
• Discovery – STS-41D Liftoff
• Discovery STS-131: Sound of Launch
• Discovery – Vector transfer
• Discovery – Wheelstop

M4R (iPhone):

• Discovery – Go for Deploy
• Discovery – STS-131: Sound of Launch
• Discovery – Vector Transfer

Shuttle and Station

Here’s a collection of sounds from the space shuttle. We have included both MP3 and M4R (iPhone) sound files to download. Note: M4R files must be downloaded and imported via iTunes. They will not play in your browser.

• STS-1: We’re Going to Dust it Off First
• STS-7: That Was Definitely an E-ticket!
• STS-26: Liftoff
• STS-41D: Liftoff
• STS-131: Sound of Launch
• STS-132: Shuttle Gear Drop
• STS-135: Countdown to Launch
• STS-135: Launch Commentary
• STS-135: Landing Commander Comments
• STS-135: Landing Comments
• STS-135: Landing Commander comments

Apollo and Mercury

Here’s a collection of sounds from Apollo and Mercury. We have included both MP3 and M4R (iPhone) sound files to download. Note: M4R files must be downloaded and imported via iTunes. They will not play in your browser.

• Apollo 8: Merry Christmas
• Apollo 11: We Have a Lift-Off
• Apollo 11: Eagle Has Landed
• Apollo 11: Eagle Has Landed Extended
• Apollo 11: That’s One Small Step for (a) Man
• Apollo 12: Cardiac Sim
• Apollo 12: All Weather Testing
• Apollo 13: Houston, We’ve Had a Problem
• JFK: Return Him Safely to Earth
• JFK: We Choose the Moon with Apollo 11 Launch
• JFK: We Choose the Moon
• Mercury 4: Clock Started
• Mercury 6: Zero G
• Mercury 6: God Speed
• Mercury 7: Liftoff
• Mercury 7: Fireflies
• Mercury 7: Guaymas Greeting
• Mercury 9: Astronaut Cooper Comments
• Apollo 11: Eagle has Landed

Here’s a collection of sounds from various missions. We have included both MP3 and M4R (iPhone) sound files to download. Note: M4R files must be downloaded and imported via iTunes. They will not play in your browser.

• Atlas V: Launch
• Cassini: Enceladus Sound
• Cassini: Saturn Radio Emissions #1
• Cassini: Saturn Radio Emissions #2
• Juno: Morse code “HI” received from Earth
• Kepler: Star KIC12268220C Light Curve Waves to Sound
• Kepler: Star KIC7671081B Light Curve Waves to Sound
• LCROSS: Water on the Moon Song
• SOFIA Takeoff Audio
• Stardust: Passing Comet Tempel 1
• Voyager: Interstellar Plasma Sounds
• Voyager: Lightning on Jupiter

Beeps and Bytes

• Chorus Radio Waves within Earth’s Atmosphere

Courtesy of Electric and Magnetic Field Instrument Suite and Integrated Science (EMFISIS) team at the University of Iowa

• Quindar: Sound #1
• Quindar: Sound #2
• Sputnik: Beep

Sounds of the Future

Ringtone Directions: Android (MP3 format) – We recommend downloading the most recent version of the  NASA App for Android  for previewing and installing these ringtones. The ringtones option is found on the main screen of NASA App for Android by hitting the menu button on your phone. iPhone (M4R format) –  Please visit our iPhone directions for downloading and installing M4R ringtones page. Other (MP3 format) – Most smartphones can play MP3 files as ringtones. The process for downloading and installing ringtones to a smartphone may vary greatly based on phone, operating system, and service provider. Check your phone’s user manual or your provider’s website. Some providers may limit your access to ringtones not sold through their site. You can still enjoy the MP3 files on your computer. MP3:

• SLS Test Fire

Houston We Have a Podcast

From Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars, explore the world of human spaceflight with NASA each week on the official podcast of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Listen to in-depth conversations with the astronauts, scientists and engineers who make it possible.

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Mars Audio Log #2

More podcasts from nasa.

NASA's Curious Universe

On a Mission

Small Steps, Giant Leaps

Universo curioso de la NASA

The Museum of Portable Sound

Portable Museum Bringing the Culture & History of Sound Beyond Music to the World – One Listener at a Time.

Sounds of Earth: The Record That Went to Space

Carl Sagan discusses the Voyager golden records on the television series COSMOS: A Personal Voyage (1980)

Thanks to the cooperation of Ozma Records , we are presenting SOUNDS OF EARTH: THE RECORD THAT WENT TO SPACE . This special exhibition consists of the twelve minute montage of field recordings included on the Voyager spacecraft golden records – a group of recordings intended to represent what Earth sounds like in the event that extra terrestrials might someday find either of the Voyager space probes.

Launched in 1977 by NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Administration, to this day these craft, now outside out solar system, each carry with them a Golden Record – an LP containing this montage as well as greetings in dozens of languages and music from around the Earth.

Compiled by Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan, and Jimmy Iovine, this montage of sounds is a fascinating document of what sounds a select group of humans thought best represented our planet.

Now you can hear this historic 12-minute sound essay with us on your next visit to the Museum of Portable Sound – this exhibition is FREE and included with your regular admission to the museum!

• Download the Exhibition Catalogue 

While you’re here…

…we need your help. For four years, we have managed to keep admission to the Museum of Portable Sound free for all. But this model hasn’t proven to be sustainable. If you value what we do, and would like to help us continue to fulfil our mission of bringing the culture of sound to the world one visitor at a time, please consider making a donation or supporting us long-term on Patreon .

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Voyager's Golden Legacy: A Journey Through Space and Sound 1977

O n August 20, 1977, the launching of Voyager 2 took place, and with it, a very special artifact, the “Golden Record.” It was a phonograph record that would stand in for Earth to an extraterrestrial civilization. They crafted it under the direction of the inimitable astronomer Carl Sagan and his staff as an exegesis filled with a cornucopia of images, sounds, and music apropos of the human experience and Earth.

The record contains greetings in 55 human languages, a variety of pictures to visualize life on Earth, and an eclectic choice of music. These musical pieces are from very wide-ranging genres and cultures, including those by famous classical composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Igor Stravinsky. Such internationally renowned folk and traditional music exponents included Guan Pinghu, Kesarbai Kerkar, and Valya Balkanska. Music from Azerbaijan was also represented by Azerbaijani folk music.

The Golden Record didn’t forsake the genres of the day, either: it included pieces by the more popular names of blues and rock and roll, Chuck Berry and Blind Willie Johnson. It was Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” that seems to have been particularly commented upon, with some pointed remarks on its inclusion. Carl Sagan famously responded to protests, “There are a lot of adolescents on the planet.”

Interestingly, they discussed using the Beatles’ classic “Here Comes The Sun” for the Golden Record project. Both the band and Sagan’s team supported the idea. The only problem was: that because EMI owned the licensing rights to the music, the song was dropped. It’s a pity because many do believe extraterrestrials would have loved the endorphin-boosting melodies of Abbey Road.

The Golden Record’s cover includes instructions on how to play it, which are accompanied by a stylus. Less than a month later he sent the Voyager 1 to space, with an additional copy of the Golden Record. Both Voyagers have already covered billions of miles, but they have not yet reached the intelligent life form. If they reach an extraterrestrial audience, let’s just cross our fingers that our cosmic neighbors love the eclectic sound we imagine Earth would produce.

The Voyager Program is one of the more extraordinary accomplishments in human history, from reaching beyond our solar system to pushing these barriers to understanding the cosmos. As these vessels keep traveling on through the vast emptiness of space, they carry a golden legacy, they are monuments to human curiosity, creativity, and the urge to remain in communication with the other.

The post Voyager’s Golden Legacy: A Journey Through Space and Sound 1977 first appeared on BuzzHint .

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On This Day in 1977: Voyager 2 Takes a “Golden Record” of Sounds and Music Into Space

Em Casalena

Updated: 

On August 20, 1977, the second Voyager space probe was launched into space. On it, the spacecraft carried a “Golden Record” of images, sounds, and music with the intention of representing Earth. The probe was sent in hopes that if extraterrestrial life is out there, they might be able to catch a glimpse of our planet and the nature of humanity through the Golden Record.

Videos by American Songwriter

The probe carried a number of different types of media. Greetings in 55 different human languages were sent, as well as a large number of images of Earth. Just as well, a pretty hefty catalog of music was also sent into space as well.

There is quite a bit of variation in the music featured on the record. This makes sense, considering the record was curated to give outside civilizations a basic idea of human beings’ love of music.

What Music Made It Onto the Voyager’s Golden Record in 1977?

Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky made up the composers’ section of the record. Works by folk, classical, and traditional musicians from around the world also made it onto the album, including Guan Pinghu, Kesarbai Kerkar, and Valya Balkanska. Azerbaijani folk music was another notable addition.

Blues and rock and roll also made it to the album, notably with tracks by Chuck Berry and Blind Willie Johnson. Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” was one addition that some claimed was controversial and “adolescent”. Carl Sagan famously said in reply, “There are a lot of adolescents on the planet.”

Sagan and his team also wanted to include the classic Beatles hit “Here Comes The Sun” on the Golden Record, as did the Fab Four themselves. For reasons rumored to involve corporate greed, EMI declined to license the song for the Golden Record. It’s a shame that no Beatles classics made it onto the album; we’d imagine extraterrestrials would vibe with Abbey Road .

[Buy Tickets To See The Beatles’ Paul McCartney Live]

The cover of the Golden Record contained instructions on how to play it, as well as a stylus. The record was almost entirely curated by legendary astronomer Carl Sagan with some help from his team. 

Less than a month later, the Voyager 1 probe was launched (notably out of order). Voyager 1 carried an additional copy of the Golden Record on board. Both probes have since traveled billions of miles into space, and have yet to find intelligent life. If they do manage to reach someone out there, we hope they have good music taste.

Photo by Everett/Shutterstock

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Space photo of the week: 1st-ever close-up of Neptune is Voyager 2's final portrait of a planet

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.

What it is: One of the final photographs of Neptune taken by NASA's Voyager 2 probe

Where it is: 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion kilometers) from the sun

When it was taken: Aug. 25, 1989

When it was shared: Aug. 19, 2024

Why it's so special: Only one spacecraft has ever visited the eighth and most distant planet from the sun.

On Aug. 25, 1989, NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft took the first-ever close-up images of Neptune. This one — among the last full-disk photos taken before the probe ended its "Grand Tour" of the planets — became one of the most iconic. It revealed Neptune as a deep azure blue, which colored the public's perception of the planet for decades. (That is, until a new treatment of Voyager 2's images earlier this year revealed Neptune's true color to be a much lighter blue green.)

Voyager 2's original images were taken in false color using filters — a standard technique used by planetary astronomers. In this case, blue and green filters were used alongside one that passes light at a wavelength absorbed by methane gas. According to scientists , hydrogen and helium dominate Neptune's atmosphere, but methane gives it its blue appearance by absorbing red light. The filters make methane look dark blue in this image, but they also reveal a semitransparent haze layer across the planet. The bright-red edge around Neptune is caused by the haze scattering sunlight at higher altitudes, above most of the methane.

Related: Uranus and Neptune aren't made of what we thought, new study hints

Voyager 2 took this shot almost precisely 12 years after it launched on a Titan-Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Having visited Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1981 and Uranus in 1985, Voyager's closest approach to Neptune came on Aug. 25, 1989. During the flyby, Voyager also visited two of Neptune's moons, Triton and Nereid, and discovered six new moons and four rings .

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Because Neptune is about 30 times farther from the sun than Earth is, it gets only a faction of a percent of Earth's sunlight, meaning Voyager 2 had to take long-exposure images. So engineers fired the fast-moving spacecraft's thrusters to have it rotate so the camera could remain focused.

Voyager 2's images from Neptune were its last, sent back as radio signals with 13-watt transmitters — about enough power to run a refrigerator light bulb, according to NASA — and took four hours to travel across the solar system to NASA's Deep Space Network of radio antennae across the world.

Neptune was Voyager 2's last stop before it traveled to the solar system's edge. The probe entered interstellar space on Nov. 5, 2018. Voyager 2 remains NASA's longest-running mission, even after encountering some communication problems last summer.

For more groovy space photos, check out our space photo of the week archives . New stories post every Sunday.

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Fed Chair Powell: ‘The time has come’ for interest rate cuts

Jerome Powell’s speech in Jackson Hole, Wyo., means rates will probably fall at the central bank’s mid-September meeting. But he didn’t say by how much.

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — The Federal Reserve is ready to cut interest rates, confident that inflation is easing to normal levels and wary of any more slowing in the job market.

“The time has come for policy to adjust,” Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell said Friday, in his most anticipated speech of the year. “The direction of travel is clear.”

Powell did not specify a timeline or forecast how much Fed leaders were preparing to lower rates. But his remarks came as close as possible to teeing up a cut at the Fed’s next policy meeting in mid-September. Rates currently sit between 5.25 and 5.5 percent, where they have remained since July 2023. The open question now is whether officials will opt for a more aggressive cut next month — a half-point instead of a more typical quarter-point.

Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, called the speech a “serious policy pivot.” Brusuelas expects central bankers will ultimately bring rates down considerably — to somewhere between 3 and 3.5 percent — by the latter half of next year, barring a major downturn.

“The key question that the Fed needs to answer is: What is the ultimate destination of policy?” Brusuelas said. “It’s now up to central bankers to map that out in its upcoming forecast and rhetoric.”

After years of fighting dangerously high inflation, Powell, in his speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, shifted notably toward the job market, which he said “has cooled considerably.” Officials have been able to justify keeping rates at the highest level in more than 20 years, in part because they weren’t seeing consequences for workers.

Now, the balance of risks has shifted from rising prices to a weakening labor market — cementing the case for rate cuts.

“We do not seek or welcome further cooling in labor market conditions,” he said.

Since the Fed’s last meeting in July, job reports have come in below expectations, and the government this week revised down some labor market estimates from 2023 and early 2024. Many Fed watchers have argued this summer that the central bank was in danger of leaving rates too high for too long, keeping pressure on the economy to quash inflation for longer than was sustainable — or that it already had done so.

Still, not everyone shared Powell’s read on the economy. Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said inflation hasn’t yet come all the way down to the Fed’s 2 percent target and could get stuck hovering somewhere higher. Strain said that while the job market had “softened,” it wasn’t “soft,” making a September cut premature.

“Rate cuts are certainly in our future, but they may not be appropriate until 2025,” Strain said.

Major stock indexes rose Friday on the prospect of a rate cut next month, with the S&P 500, Nasdaq composite and Dow Jones Industrial Average all ending the day up by more than 1 percent.

The comments Friday at an annual conference — filled with travel metaphors befitting a hopeful voyager — shed light on Powell’s attempts to steer the Fed’s sometimes choppy course. He looked back on the central bank’s mistaken assumption that pandemic-era inflation would be temporary, quipping that “the good ship Transitory was a crowded one,” even going off script to say he recognized “some former shipmates out here.” Referring to the Fed’s critics, he said that while he’d spelled out his assessment of the past few years, “your mileage may vary.”

Ultimately, his speech struck a more hopeful tone than in years past, when the Fed was in the thick of its inflation fight. But he made clear that the two-pronged battle to control prices without sparking widespread layoffs was not over.

“We will do everything we can to support a strong labor market as we make further progress toward price stability,” Powell said. “With an appropriate dialing back of policy restraint, there is good reason to think that the economy will get back to 2 percent inflation while maintaining a strong labor market.”

Indeed, weakening in the job market has come into sharper relief in just the past few days. On Wednesday , revised government data showed employers added 818,000 fewer jobs between April 2023 and March than reports had shown at the time. The span covered by the revisions is now far enough in the rearview mirror that it probably won’t overhaul policymakers’ insistence that the labor market remains a pillar of economic strength. But it did complicate the Fed’s argument for keeping rates high — as did the weaker-than-expected July jobs report . That report also triggered a brutal day of trading in global markets, underscoring how consequential the Fed’s interest rate decisions are.

For months, financial markets had been eager for a concrete timeline on cuts. Now that Powell has laid the groundwork for a September trim, attention will shift to the Fed’s later meetings in November and December.

Officials rarely forecast that far ahead, preferring to leave options on the table. This year also brings the added challenge that the economy could look different depending on who wins the presidential election. Much as the Fed tries to avoid politics at all costs, expected cuts in the next few months would end up giving a bit of juice to the economy before November, even as Democrats and Republicans try to sell voters on their pitches to lower costs and create new jobs. (The Fed’s November meeting falls the week of the election.)

Upcoming cuts would probably end up being more beneficial to Vice President Kamala Harris , who has campaigned in part on the economy’s strength under President Joe Biden . Still, Harris’s populist policy agenda could also stoke inflation by, for example, boosting housing demand, even as her campaign emphasizes lowering everyday costs.

Meanwhile, economists broadly expect that GOP nominee and former president Donald Trump’s proposals for mass deportations and higher tariffs would send prices up , as well. Trump has also suggested that presidents should have more control over monetary policy, long considered the Fed’s responsibility free from interference by elected officials. Just this week, Trump also attacked the Bureau of Labor Statistics for its hefty jobs revisions, even though the agency revised its estimates under his administration, too.

Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said there is a clear risk that inflation worsens in 2025, “more likely and larger if Trump wins.” If prices heat back up, the Fed could be pushed to reverse course yet again.

“This sets us up for a nasty surprise pivot in monetary policy — and that pivot will be more disruptive and damaging precisely because the chair and [Fed] have forsaken talking about anything but the immediate outlook,” Posen said.

Zoomed out, the economy is in impressive shape. Inflation in July cooled to the lowest level since spring 2021 , and the unemployment rate is still low. Consumers haven’t yanked back on spending. The U.S. economy is also resilient compared with peer nations, many of which send their own central bankers and economists to this confab in the Grand Tetons.

But Powell and his colleagues don’t do much celebrating, mindful that the economy has bested their predictions again and again. Last year , Powell took the podium to say that there was still ground to cover on inflation. And in 2022 , Powell issued a concise, direct warning that stabilizing the economy would cause “some pain” for Americans and probably weaken the job market.

Back then, it seemed all but guaranteed that the Fed would have to cause a recession to vanquish inflation. But that pain never materialized, and there still isn’t a downturn in sight as the Fed prepares to cut.

Speaking to Bloomberg TV after Powell’s speech, Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker said he doesn’t hear that people in his district are overly concerned about a quarter-point vs. half-point cut. Instead, businesses are looking for assurance that the Fed has a plan.

He summed up the advice he hears as: “Don’t just stop and start. … Start a process and keep it moving.”

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Personal Stories from the Mission

Voyager is a mission with no shortage of highlights, given its historic encounters with all the giant planets and the first-ever entry of a human-made object into interstellar space. We asked team members past and present and next-generation scientists and engineers inspired by Voyager to share their most meaningful moments over the decades.

From the first detection of active volcanoes outside Earth to the first up-close images of Neptune, the 40-year Odyssey of NASA's Voyager mission is full of unforgettable memories. Voyager 1, the farthest human-made object, launched on Sept. 5, 1977, and Voyager 2, the second farthest, launched on Aug. 20, 1977. In honor of their 40th launch anniversaries, we asked scientists and engineers who have worked with the spacecraft, as well as enthusiasts inspired by the mission, to share their most meaningful Voyager moments.

Some Voyager team members began their careers in the early days of the mission. Designing science sequences for the 1986 Uranus encounter was a first job after college for Suzanne Dodd, now the Voyager project manager: "We were making history," she said.

Jamie Rankin, who started working with Voyager Project Scientist Ed Stone just days after Voyager 1 entered interstellar space in 2012: "Every day as a graduate student here is like living in a legacy of discovery," she wrote.

We were making it happen. We were making history.

Suzanne "Suzy" Dodd

Voyager Project Manager

What is your most meaningful Voyager moment and why?

"I loved adventure stories as a child, turned to science fiction as a young adult, studied math and physics at Georgia Tech, often gazed at the night sky and dreamed of one day exploring the planets. After learning the tricks of the trade at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, I was thrilled in late 1974 to receive a call from Bud Schurmeier, project manager of the Mariner Jupiter/Saturn 1977 mission (or simply MJS77), which was later named Voyager. He offered me the job of “mission analysis and engineering manager.” I would be working with the great team of dedicated people Bud had assembled."

Charley Kohlhase

"I was 9 in 1989 when my parents let me stay up to watch the PBS coverage of Voyager 2's flyby of Neptune. I remember my parents debating whether I would even be interested. I think I really wanted to see it because I'd heard about it. I was interested in space, and I wanted to be an astronaut, but only in a vague way."

Mark Wallace

"For me, the highlights of Voyager were clearly the planetary encounters. All six of them were wonderful experiences where every day we saw and learned new things. We had a lifetime of discovery packed into each one."

"My involvement with the Voyager mission started in 2001, when I started using and adapting a major computational code developed by the University of Michigan to study the outer layer of the heliosphere, where this bubble of plasma that the Sun blows around itself touches interstellar space."

"I arrived in Pasadena, California, to begin graduate school at Caltech on Friday, August 31, 2012 -- just six days after Voyager 1’s own interstellar arrival. My new advisor, Ed Stone, invited me to attend the Voyager Science Steering Group meeting which started the following Monday."

"I think back to the days we launched Voyager 40 years ago, and it seemed like one more shot into the unknown -- albeit rather ambitious. We just wanted to get to Jupiter and Saturn in the next four years and explore the “uncharted territory.”

"In late 1972, I was hired into NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to develop the Voyager power subsystem design. My background included engineering on the Phoenix missile and F-15 radar transmitter at Hughes Aircraft. The opportunity to work at a world-class laboratory like JPL was the pinnacle of my career aspirations."

"The five days of January 24 to 28, 1986 -- starting when Voyager 2 flew by Uranus (“the planet that got knocked on its side”) and ending with the painful tragedy of the Challenger accident -- are forever etched in my memory of unforgettable life experiences."

"In 1610, when Galileo (Galilei) was the first person in the world to look through a telescope at an astronomical object, he looked at Jupiter, and he saw four moons going around it. The historical importance of that event is it convinced him that Copernicus was right -- the Sun was the center of the solar system, and the planets were revolving around it."

It wasn't just that it was a technically great mission. The people who I worked with, the generosity and kindness with which they treated me, has stayed with me always.

Steve Squyres

Role on Voyager: Graduate Student

"Voyager was one of the most wonderful, formative, unforgettable experiences of my entire career. I was very, very fortunate that in graduate school I worked with several members of Voyager imaging team."

"There was great excitement in the office as the scientists started arriving in the weeks leading up to the flyby. I got to meet Carl Sagan and had him autograph my copy of Cosmos."

"I started working for the Voyager Imaging Team in 1977, shortly before launch, and continued on through the Neptune encounter. There were so many memorable moments, but one of my favorites occurred in the spring of 1990..."

"A single paper plot over a quarter of a mile long showed the attenuation of the starlight by the ring material, at a resolution of greater than 20 meters, for the entire 70 million-meter length of the cut through the rings’ radius. What a spectacular event that unfolded after so much hard work by so many people!"

"One of my favorite stories in science history is Voyager’s observation of tidally driven volcanic activity at Jupiter’s tiny moon Io, first theorized just prior to the mission’s arrival at Jupiter. As I grew up I knew I wanted to contribute to answering big questions, including, "Are we alone in the universe?" The Voyager Golden Record, which carries a capsule of sounds and images from Earth in the chance that some day an alien civilization might recover the spacecraft, came to symbolize for me humanity's commitment to pursuing the answers to such questions and the hope that our better nature will see us through to the future."

Steve Vance

"Working on a mission like Voyager, with the opportunity to explore the planets, was something I dreamed about since first looking at Jupiter and Saturn in third grade with my tiny telescope. I wondered what these worlds looked like up close and Voyager gave me a chance to find out."

"One of my more memorable moments, after watching Voyager 1 launch from the Cape in September of 1977, was focused on whether Neptune had a magnetosphere... Part of the challenge was that certain conclusions could only be drawn from actually 'being there,' and in mid-August 1989, Voyager was bearing down on its rendezvous with Neptune."

"Back in 1989, I was hired by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to work on the General Science Data Team for the Voyager project’s Neptune flyby. Incredible! My first job at JPL was on what could reasonably be argued as the best mission ever flown by JPL at the peak of its experience and capabilities."

"When I was graduating from college in Texas with a computer science degree, I was all set to go to work for IBM in San Jose (IBM back then for many of us was like Google now); I had never heard of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory or Voyager. However, fate brought me to JPL and to the Voyager project."

"I have had the unspeakably good fortune to have worked on Voyager throughout my entire career and to continue to do so. As a graduate student, I worked on the Plasma Wave Science (PWS) instruments prior to launch. (I placed a 'Uranus or Bust' sticker on the Voyager 2 PWS shipping container – how little I knew about how far it would go!)."

"Finally, for me, a cosmic-ray physicist, one of the highlights by far has been the crossing of the heliopause, the boundary of the Sun’s magnetic bubble, into interstellar space by Voyager 1. The Voyagers will orbit the center of the galaxy forever. It is humbling to think that I’ve been a part of such a fantastic mission."

My daily interactions across the JPL engineering matrix on Voyager-specific issues and problems provided me with a host of friendships and a knowledge base on implementation of a long-lived spacecraft. Who could have predicted that this hardware would still be functional some 40 years after launch?

Robert Detwiler

Power System Cognizant Engineer

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