VOA慢速英語(yǔ):Voyager 1 Headed Into Interstellar Space

[00:00.00]From VOA Learning English, [00:01.60]this is the Technology Report. [00:04.30]Space scientists recently announced that Voyager 1 [00:08.38]is the first spacecraft to reach interstellar space [00:11.91]- the space between stars. [00:14.25]The spacecraft carries the voices [00:16.69]and sounds of human beings and animals [00:19.34]that were living on Earth in 1977 and with launched. [00:24.46]The sounds are on a gold-plated phonograph record [00:28.09]secured to the side of the spacecraft. [00:30.98]Tim Ferris mixed the audio that went on the record. [00:34.82]"The record is a conventional long-playing phonograph record [00:39.35]except that it is made of copper [00:40.75]and it is covered in gold [00:42.42]and then it is put inside a titanium case to protect it." [00:45.30]Tim Ferris was one of a small group of people [00:48.44]who worked to persuade the American space agency [00:51.67]to attach the record to Voyager's side. [00:54.81]Annie Druyan, another member of the group says [00:57.95]the original idea came from Frank Drake, [01:00.94]an astronomer at the University of California. [01:04.17]"And it seemed to Frank that the best way to compress [01:08.51]as much information as possible in a very small space [01:13.74]was to do it on a phonograph record." [01:16.38]And there's plenty of information on the record, [01:19.72]it contains messages in 59 human languages. [01:23.70][Sounds] [01:34.77]It has 118 pictures of life on earth, [01:38.05]and 27 pieces of music. [01:40.50]Tim Ferris says these demonstrate the diversity of human creation. [01:46.17]"So there is music on the record from Europe and the United States... [02:01.29]But also from Africa, the South Pacific and South America... [02:13.08]Georgia, Russia, all these places - such as China, India..." [02:23.06]Shortly after American astronauts returned from space in 1968, [02:28.61]the space agency released a photograph of the Earth [02:32.20]rising from behind the Moon. [02:34.14]Margaret Weitekamp is with the Smithsonian Institution's [02:38.27]National Air and Space Museum. [02:40.66]He says that picture deeply touched people like Frank Drake [02:45.42]and his partner on the gold record project, [02:48.07]the scientist and TV star Carl Sagan. [02:51.16]The photo made them think carefully about [02:53.94]how they might present all humanity... [02:57.03]not just the nation that sent the spacecraft up. [02:59.87]"Knowing that that picture was taken by a human being [03:03.06]I think profoundly changed the thoughts of these people [03:06.94]and really made them start thinking about [03:10.09]'If we are this pale blue dot in this ocean of vastness, [03:14.47]then how do we communicate something about who we are?'" [03:18.80]As for the message they chose, [03:20.84]Tim Ferris says they could not have chosen anything better. [03:24.83]"You can't say that an Indian raga or a piece by Bach [03:29.66]or a Japanese Shakuhachi piece 'means' [03:34.52]something that you can put into words. [03:36.51]It is its own end product. [03:40.05]It means really what it is. [03:41.69]Similar to things in nature. [03:43.23]A flower isn't a way of expressing something else. [03:46.07]It is the end product. It is what it is." [03:48.66][Sounds] [03:53.19]And that's the Technology Report from VOA Learning English.

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