This post is an adaptation of a speech I gave during Square’s public speaking meetup.

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I want to talk about my favorite photograph, “Pale Blue Dot” which recently turned 25. You can just barely make out in the lower right of the brown streak a bright pixel. No, it is not a smudge on your screen. That tiny dot is Earth. This picture is a portrait of Earth taken by Voyager 1 at a record-setting 6 BILLION kilometers. At this distance, even the speed of light starts to feel slow. It took over 5 hours for the light from Earth to reach Voyager’s camera.

This vast void of emptiness engulfing our home is truly humbling. And while I certainly could fill many pages about The Pale Blue Dot, I will defer to Carl Sagan on the matter, whose prose I know I can’t rival. Instead I want to talk about a lesser-known part of the Voyager mission.

I want to talk about the Golden Record. Knowing Voyager 1 & 2 would eventually leave our Solar System behind, NASA decided to include a message from humanity onboard, a message in a bottle to cast out into the ocean of interstellar space. These standard 12-inch records, are plated in brilliant gold to weather the harsh conditions of space.

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On the underside are a myriad of etchings, many of which give instructions on how to play the record. But the one I want to call out is different. See in the top right of the left image, the dashed lines spiking out from a central point. These lines give the coordinates of our Sun triangulated by pulsars. We know of only 1 planet in the whole universe that can harbor life, a bleak and lonely prospect. With these coordinates, we are desperately trying to reach someone — anyone — who can shatter this isolation. Someone who can find us and comfort us that we’re not alone. I like to think of this etching as an “if found, please return to Earth” sticker.

On the record itself are a wide range of sounds from our home. To start, you’ll be warmly greeted in 55 different languages. Everything from ancient Sumerian: “May all be well”, to Cantonese: “How’s everyone? Wish you peace, health and happiness”, to Persian: “Greetings to the residents of far skies”.

A variety of natural and artificial sounds are included next. There’s the roar of thunder, the gentle splash of waves on a beach, the energetic bark of a dog, and even the boom of a Saturn V rocket blasting into space. There’s music too: upbeat chamber music from Bach, rhythmic percussion from Senegal, the haunting blues of Blind Willie Johnson, and much more.

But the record isn’t limited to just sound. NASA encoded images as well. Many attempt to teach our greatest scientific discoveries: the structure of atoms, the structure of DNA, or a schematic of our solar system. There are celebrations to our engineering and architectural accomplishments: the sprawling Great Wall of China, the serene Golden Gate Bridge, and the noble headquarters of the UN in New York City.

But the images I like most are the ones of humans. Two stand out in particular. The first is a picture of children at school playing. The children come from all different kinds of cultures and while some look nervous, others are laughing, they are all sitting and enjoying each others’ company. The second is a portrait of a man from Guatemala smiling at the camera. His face is shiny with sweat from working the nearby land and his beaming smile is infectious. He immediately connects with you right through the camera.

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It’s easy to feel lost at the distance of “Pale Blue Dot” when all of humankind fits in less than one pixel. But then I remember the golden record drifting out into the Milky Way. I remember the ideals etched onto those 12 inches of gold. I remember our love for scientific discovery, for music, one another, and for our planet. I remember our unfaltering desire to connect with each other. Then I don’t feel lost anymore. I feel a comforting closeness to my fellow humankind, huddled together on our mote of dust suspended in a sun beam.