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Greetings From Earth: Stream the Sounds of Voyager's 'Golden Record'

If you've ever wanted to listen to the sounds aliens will hear when they discover the Voyager 1 probe's "golden record," now's your chance.
The golden record's illustrations show how to read the information etched onto the other side.
The golden record's illustrations show how to read the information etched onto the other side.NASA

If you've ever wanted to listen to the sounds aliens will hear when they discover the Voyager 1 space probe's "golden record," now's your chance: NASA has put them up for free streaming at SoundCloud. So far there are greetings in dozens of languages from Earth — in alphabetical order rather than chronological, as they are on the record, unfortunately — and a collection of sounds meant to represent life on our planet. No music, either, though you can probably find the various classic pieces chosen for the record elsewhere.

Related: Confirmed! Voyager 1 Probe Is Really in Interstellar Space

Voyager 1 is the only manmade object to have left our solar system, and is now about 132 astronomical units, or about 12 billion miles, from Earth. The golden record is engraved not only with images, sounds and music, but instructions on how to extract those images and illustrations showing humanity's biology and location in the galaxy. Astronomer Carl Sagan chaired the committee that selected and designed the materials for the record.

You can download the audio files from NASA's website, but streaming them via SoundCloud is definitely a more convenient solution.