The vinyl frontier: the story of the Voyager Golden Record

Have you ever made someone you love a mix-tape? Forty years ago, a group of scientists, artists and writers gathered in a house in Ithaca, New York to work on the most important compilation ever conceived.

It wasn't from one person to another, it was from Earth to the Cosmos.

During the design phase of the Voyager mission, it was realised that this pair of plucky probes would eventually leave our solar system to drift forever in the unimaginable void of interstellar space.

With this gloomy-sounding outcome in mind, NASA decided to do something optimistic.

They commissioned astronomer Carl Sagan to create a message to be fixed to the side of Voyager 1 and 2 - a plaque, a calling card, a handshake to any passing alien that might one day chance upon them.

The result was the Voyager Golden Record, a genre-hopping multi-media metal LP.