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KEO Satellite

Fifty thousand years from now– if all goes according to plan– a bright streak will smudge the sky as a man-made meteor plunges into the Earth's atmosphere. The burnoff of the object's thermal layer during re-entry should illuminate the sky with bright artificial auroras, and despite its dramatic entrance, its payload will hopefully survive the rough landing unscathed. The spherical container is a satellite, one which will soon be placed into a leisurely orbit that will allow it to circle the Earth for fifty millennia before finally sinking back into the atmosphere. The project is supported by UNESCO– the science and education arm of the UN– and the European Space Agency. It is called KEO, and it's certainly one of the more creative and complex efforts to cast a message-in-a-bottle into the sea of time.

Posted by: slÖ / 9:17 p.m.