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DreamChaserSt t1_j1v3hb1 wrote

The golden records are more symbolic than anything. If they traveled any meangingful distance before being found (i.e. many light years), it would be hundreds of thousands of years from now, so having our location on it isn't really all that bad, because by then we'd either be extinct (hopefully not), or so advanced that they pose no threat.

If they stumble across the record in any meaningful time (within the next few human lifetimes), well, the Voyagers would be within several hundred AU from Earth, and so they were on their way here anyway.

As for decoding it, I refer to the other responses here. We tried not to do anything obtuse, and used concepts any technological civilization should have and know about. I think it could be decoded well enough by another species.

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JBLeafturn t1_j1v7h9z wrote

I think we needed to do SOMETHING. The way I see it, in a billion years sol will be dust and embers and there's a 50/50 chance that the voyager may be the only thing that survived it.

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DreamChaserSt t1_j1v8dhl wrote

That's a bit extreme, but any probes we have past Mars should still be around, and we have more than just Voyager traveling outside the solar system (New Horizons, Pioneer, etc).

I personally think we'll still be around in a billion years. Or at least some distant descendents of ours, that can trace themselves back to humanity. Once we can settle other planets, something that should be possible in this century, it would be just about impossible for us to go extinct, so our chances of still existing in some way millions of years and more from now go way up.

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adamantium99 t1_j1va2wk wrote

This is not consistent with current understanding of stellar evolution. The sun won’t be turning into a red giant for about 5 billion years and then it has a long , long future as a white dwarf ahead of it.

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JBLeafturn t1_j1var8m wrote

For dramatic emphasis I consider the white dwarf as an "ember" here, but TIL that the sun is considered to have around 5 billion years left. I find that a bit heartening because if Humanity goes extinct at least there'll be enough time for life to evolve another intelligent species.

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mindtoxicity27 t1_j1vbsa6 wrote

I have not researched exactly how they input our location.

But I’m assuming with how long it would take for a civilization to get it and decode it (thousands to hundreds of thousands of years), that we likely wouldn’t be easily found due to the rate of expansion of the universe.

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DreamChaserSt t1_j1vee4a wrote

That kind of thing is only applicable for very distant galaxies. It's unlikely to affect us for most of the universe's future existence. There may come a time when the only stars visible are the ones in the Milky way, and that the rest of the universe would be unobservable, but if I'm remembering it right, that won't be until the universe is already down to it's last stars.

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