For better or worse, we don't really do things like this anymore. New Horizons, the last spacecraft NASA launched that will eventually pass beyond the edge of the solar system, carries the ashes of the man who discovered Pluto, along with a piece of another spacecraft, an American flag and, for some reason (probably because people paid for the privilege), the names of more than 430,000 people stored on a CD. Apparently we've replaced attempts at interstellar communication with marketing stunts that will seem far kitschier in 30 years than Sagan's Golden Record does today. —Kevin Friedl

Simply fascinating. I do wonder what it will be like when some life form tries to decipher what they mean.