Please help me know the title of a book

curious · #1 12-02-2010, 01:15 AM

Hi, i am looking for the title of a book i saw in a bookshop. I can't remember what the title was but it was a big book for amateurs. It was about astronomy and it had a section on a message that astronomers put inside a rocket. I don't know what rocket it was but the messages consisted of a drawing of a naked man and woman and also showed a drawing showing the earth to be the 3rd planet from the sun. If you know the title please inform me . Thanks for the help

Waxing_Gibbous (Peter) · #2 12-02-2010, 02:37 AM

Errrrr,
Welcome Curious!
I have No idea of the book, but the message was affixed to a plate (gold?) on board the Voyager spacecraft.
Possibly 'Googling' some combination of the above might help.
Sorry I can't help further.
Anyone else?

stephenb (Stephen) · #3 12-02-2010, 05:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by curious

Hi, i am looking for the title of a book i saw in a bookshop. I can't remember what the title was but it was a big book for amateurs. It was about astronomy and it had a section on a message that astronomers put inside a rocket. I don't know what rocket it was but the messages consisted of a drawing of a naked man and woman and also showed a drawing showing the earth to be the 3rd planet from the sun. If you know the title please inform me . Thanks for the help

Well I don't know what the book is, but the "rocket" and "message" sounds very similar to the gold anodised plaque that the two Pioneer spacecraft carried from Earth in 1972 and 1973.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque

There was a company in Melbourne who used to make replicas of the plaque for sale (for which I have one).

Click image for larger version

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Robh (Rob) · #4 12-02-2010, 10:42 AM

The plaque would probably be mentioned in many books. For example, it is featured in a Reader's Digest book called The Space Race.
It is also featured in a book I have called In quest of the UNIVERSE by Karl F.Kuhn and Theo Koupelis. A quick google tells me it is now up to its 5th edition. It is a comprehensive introduction to astronomy, diving into more of the physics and mathematics behind things.

Regards, Rob.