What can you say about a young civilization inhabiting the third planet of an ordinary G2 star found out in the sparse suburbs of the galaxy? What pictures would you show to wholly alien eyes, and what music would you play for alien ears? How would you go about packaging all this information so that it will last for millions of years?

These were the tasks facing a small group of persons with limited time and an even more limited budget when the opportunity arose to include something more than a plaque aboard the two Voyager spacecraft, bound for interstellar space via the outer planets. Murmurs of Earth is a beautiful and fascinating account both of the process of decision and of what was finally decided upon for inclusion in the Voyager interstellar records.

Following an introductory essay by Carl Sagan and an account of the background of...