2. Gold Records

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No, these are not the kinds of records that are awarded to recording artists for selling a bunch of records. These are more like super-sized DVD disks made of gold that have digital information encoded on them. In addition to all kinds of scientific information about we humans and our genetics, there’s a recording of greetings in 55 languages and a recording of Chuck Berry’s hit song Johnny B. Goode. The intent is that any extraterrestrial beings that ever find it will be able to decode it and learn about life here on earth. The disks were launched in 1977, and we can only hope that they fell into the hands of friendly aliens if they are ever found at all, since we’ve basically sent them a shout-out, and let them know exactly where we are!