In 1977, two space crafts were launched into the vacuum of space with two missions. Their primary mission was one of exploration. They each circled Jupiter and took some pictures then, taking the sling shot approach using the planets gravity, went hurling off to greet Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. After sending the images and astronomical data about the planets back to earth their mission was all but done. The only thing left for them to do at present is to record as much data about the edge of the solar system with what instruments they have until their power supply runs out.
By roughly 2025 the power supplies on either space craft will no longer be able to power a single system on the probes and they will simply be hunks of metal hurling through space at approximately 17 kilometers per second. By that point they will be permanently dedicated to their second and lesser known mission: First contact.
Beginning is 1975 Carl Sagan began collecting images and audio samples to be converted into an analogue recording and pressed on a golden record which was to be put on each of these space craft. The 115 images and greetings in 55 languages and 38 sound samples were selected to provide the best accurate representation of Earths cultures possible at that time. A copy of this golden record was put on each of the voyager space craft with hope that at some point some one will find it and listen to it and want to try and say hello.
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