I’ve been catching up on the many, fantastic episodes of science/storytelling podcast Radiolab, to the point where it has become my new obsession. Every episode is full of wonder, thoughtfulness and curiosity. It’s great.

I’m cherry picking between the seasons as I go, so today I’m listening to Space, which kicks off with a short (but very sweet) interview with Ann Druyan, former Creative Director of the Voyager Golden Record and wife of the late Carl Sagan. 

She tells the tale of when she first fell in love with Carl (which almost moved me to tears), but she also talks about the process of thought that went into curating the content for the Voyager Golden Record. The concept of the record itself is fascinating, and the actual record itself is stunningly beautiful (shown above) with the title “The Sounds of the Earth” etched on the label. Definitely worth reading about on Wikipedia, and hearing about on the podcast.

It made me wonder, if there’s other lifeforms out there, whether they too have sent their golden/moonstone/unobtanium records out into the universe in hopes of someone hearing it billions of light years away. A very romantic idea, millions of alien records slinging through space in hopes of reaching new galactic ears. In love with the idea, actually.