Let’s Send a Message to the Stars!
ONE EARTH MESSAGE is a unique opportunity for the people of the world to collaborate in creating an interstellar message. NASA has encouraged us to design this message for eventual upload onto the New Horizons spacecraft, now on its way to Pluto and beyond. Sometime in the next million years, an alien might find it, read the message, and remember the distant Earth.
People from every country will have the opportunity to submit photos and other content. Everyone will have the chance to view and vote online for the ones they think should be sent. It will be a global project that brings the people of the world together to speak as one. Who will speak for Earth? YOU WILL! So we are asking for your support to make it so.
Will you join us and be a part of this amazing journey to the stars?! There’s a long way to go and we can’t get there without you.
We Did it Before!
In 1977, NASA sent messages with sounds and images from all over the world on golden records attached to the twin Voyager space-craft. That message illustrated the diversity of life here on Earth, and they acted as a time capsule that would help inform aliens, future humans, or whoever found them about life on our little planet.
Let’s Do It Again!
We want to collect images from people all over the planet and use them to form a new message to upload onto the New Horizons spacecraft. The New Horizons spacecraft launched January 10, 2006 and just flew by Pluto in July 2015.
What We Have Done Already
One Earth Message Project Director Jon Lomberg, Design Director for the original Golden Records, conceived the idea of this unique message in the summer of 2013. Lomberg assembled a distinguished international Advisory Board of well-known scientists, teachers, artists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and people in many diverse disciplines, all of whom signed a letter requesting NASA adopt the proposal for a New Horizons Message. The group posted a petition online and within a few months obtained over 10,000 signatures from people in 140 nations. In January 2014 NASA responded with a letter encouraging Lomberg to proceed with the development of what was now called the One Earth Message. The team forged ahead on several fronts:
- Determining the technical needs for the formatting and uploading of the message.
- Developing relationships with partner institutions worldwide, including the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at UC San Diego, which will act as the research base for the project.
- Working with the New Horizons Mission Outreach and Education staff to coordinate public and school programs.
The Goals We Want to Achieve
- Create an Internet Platform to make our message in collaboration with all the people of Earth.
- Spread the word of our project all across the globe.
- Inspire acts of global creativity whose value will enrich the Earth, long after our message has been sent.
- Determine the most efficient way to format and transmit our message to the New Horizons spacecraft out far beyond Pluto.
The First Step to make it happen is develop the Internet platform to receive and evaluate all submissions in many languages. We’ll also develop ways to program a message designed to be decoded by beings in the far future.
“Like” the New Horizons Message Initiative Facebook page for updates.
Here’s Where We Need Your Help
- Participate on behalf of your planet in creating a message that will travel on a NASA spacecraft beyond the solar system to the stars.
- Help us decide what to say and how to say it. Make sure your favorite topic is considered for inclusion.
- Have the chance of having a picture of you or your family randomly selected for a “Family Portrait” of humanity made especially for the message!
- Help us decide what to send and what to say about our world to an intelligent alien being. Thinking about yourself and your world in this cosmic context will change your perspective forever. Once you contribute, you can truly claim to be a Citizen of the Galaxy.
“I am for it (the message). I think it will inspire and engage people to think about SETI and New Horizons in new ways.” ~ Alan Stern, Principal Investigator for New Horizons
Your signature and donation will show NASA the strength of our public support.
