Gold Artifact To Orbit Earth In Hope of Alien Retrieval

Lucas123 writes "The problem: What do you leave behind that billions of years from now, and without context, would give aliens an some kind of accurate depiction of mankind. The answer: A gold-plated silicon disc with just 100 photos. That's the idea behind The Last Pictures project, which is scheduled to blast off in the next few months from Kazakhstan and orbit the earth for 5 billion years. The photos, etched into the silicon using a bitmap format, were chosen over a five-year process that involved interviews with artists, philosophers, and MIT scientists, who included biologists, physicists, and astronomers. To each, was posed a single question: What photos would you choose to send into outer space? The answer became an eclectic mix of images from pre-historic cave paintings to a photo of a group of people taken by a predator drone."

Comments

My god what has slashdot become

[SmallFurryCreature]

Your fucking stupid. Your dog can't understand a picture because it has your IQ. Creatures like apes have already shown a capacity to regonize their fellow apes from pictures, so it is safe to assume that anyone with intelligence who sees in the visual spectrum can understand pictures.

And as for aliens relying on other senses, they are space farers. We can use instruments to see with other senses, so would they.

Geez, try again moron. There are problems communicating with a totally alien life form but they are not OVER whether they cannot see a picture but over whether it will mean the same thing to them.

And the point about art, which is what this is, is that it doesn't have to.

This is a "Here I am!" project. Whatever they make of it, it don't matter, just that they know, we were here.

But a moron like you will never get such a thing.