NASA's New Horizons Probe Will Offer A Crowdsourced Message To Aliens

Around this time next year, NASA's New Horizons probe will wrap up its mission of studying Pluto, leaving it with a lot of free time (and memory) on its hands. As such, the spacecraft will be given a new mission after its original one wraps up: harboring a message for any aliens that might find it.

This will be akin to the Golden Record harbored by the long-travelling Voyager 1 spacecraft, something designed to give a representation of Earth to any other intelligent beings it may come across in time. The Golden Record was created in collaboration with Carl Sagan and others.

The New Horizons' message was given the go-ahead earlier this year from NASA, and will be officially announced in late August, according to Space.com. The new message, called the One Earth message, will be crowdsourced from the people of Earth.

Individuals across the globe will have an opportunity to send in pictures and a mass vote will take place, eventually narrowing down what will be the final message. NASA will ultimately review the final message. Once complete, the One Earth recording will be streamed to the probe.

SOURCE: Space