Twenty-four sapphire discs etched with 100 billion pixels of information illustrating the "very essence of humanity" will be sealed in a time capsule and delivered to the moon in 2027. The sapphire discs are designed to last millions of years.
Imagined by French engineer Benoit Faiveley and his team of international scientists, researchers, designers and artists, "The Sanctuary Project" is intended to serve as a repository of human achievements. It aims to pass on an intelligible message to future generations of humans, but also to other intelligent life forms, through universal symbols of our knowledge and culture.
“We hope Sanctuary will constitute a ‘cosmic hello’ to our descendants or perhaps even visitors from elsewhere," Faiveley explained. "It will be a variegated portrait of our species engraved in micropixels – up to 7 billion per disc.”
The body of work included on the sapphire discs was curated by a multidisciplinary group of 11 renowned scientists, engineers, astrophysicists, paleontologists, cosmologists and artists.
Sapphire was chosen as the preferred medium to preserve the information because of its hardness and durability. Sapphire rates a 9 on the Mohs hardness scale (only diamond is harder) and can withstand the extreme temperatures of the lunar surface. "The Sanctuary Project" is confident the information lasered onto the discs will be unaltered for millions of years.
All of the information contained on the discs will be readable with the naked eye or by using a simple magnifying glass. What's more, the pixels aren't colored with pigments, which can fade over time in extreme temperatures.
The team rejected storing information on digital devices — hard drives, CDs, DVDs, or USB keys — because it's unlikely future generations or otherworldly beings would possess the proper equipment to decipher the code.
The sapphire discs contain between 3 billion and 7 billion pixels of information. Amazingly, that vast amount of information can fit on a wafer thin disc measuring only 100mm (3.9 in) in diameter.
The discs will not only include examples of mathematics, culture, paleontology, art and science, but also the human genome. According to the group, this presentation of our human, cultural and scientific legacy has been made with the ambition of telling the story of who we are, what we know and what we do.
In 2027, the 24 discs will be tightly packed into a container made of aerospace-grade aluminum alloy and transported to the moon as part of NASA's Artemis program. Aluminum was chosen because of its hardness, durability and light weight.
The Sanctuary Project team chose to preserve the discs on the moon because it has a far less volatile environment than the Earth.
"With its ancient surface impervious to flooding, earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes, the moon is an ideal location for such an archival time capsule," noted author, historian and Sanctuary team member Michael Benson.
Credits: Disc titled "Space" is one of 24 heading to the moon. ©Sanctuary On The Moon; Benoit Faiveley inspects one of the 24 discs. ©Benedict Redgrove; Faiveley looks at the "Life" disc on the WILDER images wall at INRIA Paris Saclay research center. ©Benedict Redgrove.