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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."

6 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. make a mirror... by Razgorov+Prikazka · · Score: 5, Funny

    That way they will be tricked into thinking that we look just like them and hopefully they wont be as hostile as some movies predict.
    Anyway, I for one, welcome our new gold prospecting overlords!

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  2. Copyright License? by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Sir! We have a lot of pictures!"

    "Leave them alone, Lieutenant. We don't have the copyright license to copy them, because the owners are long dead."

    "But Sir!"

    "I SAID, leave them alone! Haven't you heard of biogenic-nuclear copyright licenses? Without the antidote we'd all die."

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    My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
  3. 4 Chan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    We should just send up pictures from 4 chan.

    Then the universe will leave us alone.

  4. Overkill by 1 or 2 Billion Years by Scarletdown · · Score: 5, Funny

    Designed to last for 5 billion years? Won't it and the Earth be one with the sun in about 3 or 4 billion?

    Anyway, I think we should baffle the aliens with a bit of bullshit and have a set of pictures that are screenshots of the Death Star destroying Alderaan. Hilarity ensues when word gets out about this and aliens from all over the galaxy scramble to tear up our long dead world in search of any useful information about this tech that allowed the great and ancient civilization that thrived here to build a space station with enough firepower to destroy an entire planet.

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  5. Re:Rosetta Stone by JurgenThor · · Score: 5, Funny

    Mathematical/scientific language

    Spoken language is unique, but mathematical language is universal, for a start every alien capable of space flight will know what integers are.

    not it they're using javascript

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  6. Re:Rosetta Stone by SJester · · Score: 5, Funny

    Not true. Jabba the Hutt spoke Subtitle.