The two Voyager probes contain a gold record, which contains both images and sounds from the Planet Earth, along with symbolic instructions on how to play it back.

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In March 1972, a plaque he designed with legendary astronomer Carl Sagan was blasted into space on board the Pioneer 10 spacecraft. ( Click here to see the Pioneer Plaque.) A few years later, Drake and Sagan would team up again on a much more ambitious project, attaching a gold-plated record full of music and photos onto the two Voyager probes.

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Voyager 2's two computers were also extensively reprogrammed to take advantage of new image-compression software that had been developed since the craft had been launched.

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The laurels for that probably belong to the rescuers of Voyager 2, the second of two probes launched towards Jupiter and Saturn in 1977.

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Soon after, Voyager itself was embroiled in a scandal, when two of its directors were arrested and charged with securities fraud on another stock (charges against one were dropped).

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