A message in a bottle travels among the stars

In 1977 we launched into space a golden record with laughter, greetings in 55 languages, the song of the whales and music by Bach and Chuck Berry. It travelled aboard the Voyager probes.

It wasn't launched for us, but in case someone, someday, out there, finds it. Voyager 1 is already the most distant human-made object from Earth: it travels through interstellar space, more than 24 billion kilometres away.

The record is designed to last a billion years. It will probably still be playing long after we are gone.