goldenrecord

In 2012, 35 years after its launch in 1977, NASA's Voyager 1 space probe left the Solar System and became the first human-man object to enter interstellar space. On board is a Golden Record with sounds and images that show life on Earth. 116 images were selected for inclusion by a committee led by Carl Sagan.

Vox just published the 5-minute video above to share a rapid-fire slideshow of the photos we humans chose to send toward the farthest reaches of space (note: one photo shows nudity).

If you had the task of choosing some photos that represented Earth and mankind to extraterrestrial life forms, which photos would you select? NASA had to do this back in 1977 when it launched the Voyager space probes, which are now the farthest human-made objects from Earth. A committee led by Carl Sagan eventually settled on 116 images:

[...] a collection of 116 pictures (one of which is for calibration) detailing but not limited to human life on earth and the planet itself. Many pictures are annotated with one or many indications of scales of time, size or mass. Some images also contain indications of chemical composition. All measures used on the pictures are first defined in the first few images using physical references.

Among the photos chosen was Ansel Adam's famous Snake River and Grand Tetons photograph.