In the fall of 1977, Carl Sagan and a team of collaborators imbued with a sense of great purpose, set out to create a time capsule of cosmic proportions, and send it into space aboard the Voyager spacecraft as humanity’s symbolic embrace of other civilisations. On it, they set out to explain our planet and our civilisation to another in 117 pictures, greetings in 54 different languages and even one from humpback whales. In it was a representative selection of the sounds of Earth, ranging from an avalanche to an elephant’s trumpet to a kiss, as well as nearly 90 minutes of some of the world’s greatest music.

This month, on Eureka, Umapagan Ampikaipakan tells the story of this Golden Record and just how it came to be.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.