High-tech memory stick being sent into space in hope of reaching alien life forms

A 21st century time capsule will be downloaded onto a 150mb file so it can be placed in a NASA probe before it is left to drift into the unknown.

The plan is to beam the file up to the NASA New Horizons Probe after it completes a survey of Pluto and the Kuiper Belt it is currently on.

Once probes finish a mission they are left to continue drifting further into space with their space agency such as NASA still gathering data.

Thirty-eight years ago one of the early space probes, Voyager, which resembles a flying satellite TV dish, was fitted with a then modern take on the time capsule to see if it would end up in the hands of aliens who could try to make contact.

Jon Lomberg, a US space artist and science journalist, worked with astronomer Carl Sagan on Voyager's Golden Record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk inscribed with audio and image data like a phonograph record.

There is no sign yet of any life forms picking up on the "message in a space ship" Voyager contains, but the vintage probe continues to beam back data after leaving the Solar System.

Lomberg is also working on the new project, which has yet to get official agreement from NASA.

He talks of the "OneEarthMessage" being like a greetings card from earth to any other life forms.

He is involved in crowd-funding to put together a compilation of Earth's sights and sounds, in a format that extraterrestrials could hopefully understand.

He told NBC News: "We're trying to build up the buzz and get people ready" and that he wants to get the public involved in what is included.

He said the message would be encoded in a format that's robust enough to survive in New Horizons' memory banks for at least 100,000 years, and possibly longer.

He added: "There's no way of knowing whether the OneEarth Message will ever reach an alien audience. 

"But we do know it will reach the people on Earth. In the long run, it may be that for most people, the thing they remember the most about the mission is the message.