On this day 35 years ago, the Voyager 2 space probe was launched into space to conduct flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
It's still operating today, as its brother Voyager 1 (which is in the process of crossing into interstellar space, making it the first man-made object to leave the solar system). Both Voyager probes carry a gold-plated audio-visual disc in the event that it is ever found by intelligent beings from other planetary systems.
What's this got to do with music? Well, the disc, featured photos of the Earth and its life forms, scientific information, spoken greetings in many languages, various sounds of earth, and music by composers such as Beethoven, Mozart and Stravinsky, as well as guitar greats Blind Willie Johnson and Chuck Berry.
It's enticing to think that, Carl Sagan and his fellow committee members held on for only a few months more, they could have included Van Halen's "Eruption" in their message to the heavens.