NASA’s New Horizons space probe is expected to finish studying Pluto next summer, and now there are plans to send a digital message from Earth to the probe in case it encounters any alien intelligence.
Jon Lomberg, who worked on a similar project with Carl Sagan in the 1970s called the Golden Record, is heading the project. The Golden Record sent onboard Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 contained whale sounds, a baby crying, a child’s voice saying “Hello from the children of the planet Earth,” and more.
The new project is called “One Earth Message.” The plan is to transmit the message to the New Horizons space probe before it travels outside of our solar system, but since the New Horizons mission was launched in 2006, experts will have to digitally transmit the information to the probe, which is around 300 million miles from our planet.
In order to decide which images to include in the message, Lomberg is helping collect ideas from groups of people around the world. The contents of the message will ultimately be decided by NASA officials. You can submit your ideas starting August 25 at OneEarthMessage.org.
