We'd like you and your friends to contribute a suggestion of what it should say.
If you could send such a message about humanity, to be read by an alien civilisation hundreds of millions of years from now, then what would you say?
The Voyagers are a long way from home right now and talking to them, even through NASA's deep space communications network, is quite slow. So you need to keep your message pretty short; just 1000 characters, (about the length of seven tweets) - see the FAQs for more information.
Over 40 years after leaving Earth this spacecraft named Voyager had broken into interstellar space, 20 billion kilometers from its home planet, & was still powered & collecting useful data.
During this time our society had changed significantly, its population doubling to over 7 billion, & the challenges of living sustainably & peacefully together had grown more urgent.
Our technologies had also become increasingly digital, raising our computing capability, pushing the frontiers of our knowledge faster & accelerating our development as a single, interconnected global civilization; with all the advantages and problems that this brings.
With onboard power dwindling, the uploading of this message is one of the last contacts we will have with this spacecraft. We hope that one day, in finding our Voyager, you will know of our existence & our desire, like yours, to explore & better understand this Universe we have shared with you.
With peace & hope from the people of planet Earth.
Dec 2023