Recreation of Pioneer Plaque

In 1972 and 1973, the pioneer plaques were sent into space, to identify our time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find us in the distant future.

(the pioneer plaque from NASA)

In the fiction Story of Your Life, the Heptapods’ language is non-linear, lacking a strict chronological order, and allows for simultaneous expression of multiple ideas. In order to communicate with aliens like NASA did, we need to apply only line-drawing images, without any numbers or letters conceived by human beings. We aim to explain the concept of time as a three-dimensional creature and other ideas about our planet through the pioneer plaque.

(photo from movie Arrival)

• Team member: Calvin, Anita, Katy
• Our plaque:

The relative position of the sun, earth and moon is an important measure of time that can be conveyed through the conceptual diagram of lunar phase change. On our plaque, each phase possesses a distinct appearance, and they are separated by intervals of 3.75 tick marks, representing 3.75 days, all combined to demonstrate a timeline of approximately 29.53 days or more simply put, a month.

2. solar day:

To explain the concept of time from another level, we visualized a solar day through the images of day and night of the earth and pointed them into the timeline of moonphase to better explain how they divide days.

3. atmosphere layers:

Besides the idea of time, the environment on the earth is another key element to identify our planet, among which the atmosphere is the most significant phenomenon because it reflects the power of gravity on earth and is the conditions for biological survival. It is usually divided into 5 layers according to different atmospheric density, temperature, etc and they are displayed on the outline of the earth on our plaque.

4. artificial satellite:

Artificial satellites move in the outer layer of the atmosphere and they are very likely to be the first sign of humans spotted by Heptapods, so we tried to introduce the shape, the location and the size compared to human beings of normal artificial satellites.

5. the solar system:

After the internal environment of the earth, the external environment is displayed on the plaque through the location of the sun, Mercury and Venus. In addition, the lines pointing out from the sun are demonstrating sunlight that provides energy on the earth, which is also a key condition of biological survival.