The lines etched into Voyager's Golden Record cover point towards 14 pulsars whose spinning clocks reveal both where the Sun is and roughly when the spacecraft left — directions designed to work without relying on a single human language - Space Daily

The etched starburst on Voyager’s Golden Record cover was designed as a practical guide, not as decoration. According to the report, its 14 lines point from the Solar System toward selected pulsars, using their highly regular spins as reference markers to help identify where the Sun is located in the galaxy.

That concept turns the cover into a kind of cosmic address label. Because pulsars act like precise natural clocks, the pattern can do more than indicate position. It can also help show roughly when the Voyager spacecraft left Earth, based on the changing rotation rates of those distant objects.

The design is notable for avoiding dependence on any spoken or written human language. Instead of words, it relies on physical and astronomical information that could, in principle, be interpreted by anyone capable of recognizing pulsars and measuring their timing. The idea was to create directions that would still make sense far beyond Earth.

Seen this way, the Golden Record cover is part message, part scientific diagram. Its markings were meant to preserve a location in space and a moment in time, using the universe itself as the reference system.