Second, Sagan believed that a design with such an explicit depiction of a woman's genitalia would be considered too obscene to be approved by NASA. First, Greek sculptures of women do not include that line. Sagan said that the decision to not include the vertical line on the woman's genitalia ( pudendal cleft) which would be caused by the intersection of the labia majora was due to two reasons. It has been claimed that Sagan, having little time to complete the plaque, suspected that NASA would have rejected a more intricate drawing and therefore made a compromise just to be safe. The woman's genitals are not depicted in detail only the Mons pubis is shown. The original drawings of the figures were based on drawings by Leonardo da Vinci and Greek sculptures. Originally Sagan intended the humans to be shown holding hands, but soon realized that an extraterrestrial might perceive them as a single creature rather than two organisms. Although this gesture may not be understood, it offers a way to show the opposable thumb and how the limbs can be moved. The right hand of the man is raised as a sign of good will. In the replicas from the 2017 Kickstarter campaign mentioned above the delineation is correct. It probably dates back to a printing error in the original article "A Message from Earth" which is the primary source for many of the copies of the engraving. The small defect in the first zero is only in reproductions of the plaque (like here) and not on the original. In units of the wavelength of the hyperfine transition of hydrogen this means 8 × 21 cm = 168 centimetres (66 in). Between the brackets that indicate the height of the woman, the binary representation of the number 8 can be seen (1000). On the right side of the plaque, a nude man and woman are shown in front of the spacecraft. Symbolism Hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen Mean depth of engraving: 0.015 inches (0.381 mm).Material: 6061 T6 gold-anodized aluminium.In May 2017, a limited edition of 200 replicas engraved from the original master design at Precision Engravers was made available in a Kickstarter Campaign, which also offered laser-engraved replicas. The first plaque was launched with Pioneer 10 on March 2, 1972, and the second followed with Pioneer 11 on April 5, 1973. ![]() Together with Frank Drake he designed the plaque, and the artwork was prepared by Linda Salzman Sagan, who was Sagan's wife at the time.īoth plaques were manufactured at Precision Engravers, San Carlos, California. NASA agreed to the plan and gave him three weeks to prepare a message. Sagan was enthusiastic about the idea of sending a message with the Pioneer spacecraft. ![]() He approached Carl Sagan, who had lectured about communication with intelligent extraterrestrials at a conference in Crimea. The original idea, that the Pioneer spacecraft should carry a message from mankind, was first mentioned by Eric Burgess when he visited the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, during the Mariner 9 mission. 3.1 Hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen.
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