A NASA Pluto probe may end up with one final mission after its work exploring the outer solar system is done — carrying a message to advanced alien civilizations.

NASA is considering allowing a team of researchers, teachers, artists and engineers to upload an interstellar message to the agency's New Horizons spacecraft, which will perform the first-ever flyby of Pluto on July 14.

This project, known as the One Earth Message, is being led by Jon Lomberg, who was design director for the "golden records" that were placed aboard NASA's twin Voyager spacecraft before their 1977 launch to teach any aliens that might encounter the probes about humanity and its home planet. [5 Facts About NASA's Voyager Spacecraft]

The goals of the One Earth Message are similar, but the new project would be a more global and collaborative effort, asking people around the world to contribute images, sounds and ideas for this farflung "message in a bottle."

"This is really a chance to try to think about ourselves from the long perspective," Lomberg told Space.com. "We'll never know if this extraterrestrial audience that we're designing it for will receive it. But we do know that the people of Earth who participate, who play a role in it — it can literally change their lives."

A digital message

Voyager 1 entered interstellar space in 2012, and Voyager 2 will join its twin in this rarefied realm soon. The two probes' golden records are actual records — 12-inch-wide (30 centimeters) gold-plated copper disks that come with cartridges, needles and instructions about how to play them. The identical records contain 115 analog-encoded images, as well as audio of thunder and other natural sounds, music and spoken greetings in 55 different languages.

The One Earth Message, by contrast, would be digital. If NASA greenlights the project — the space agency has expressed enthusiasm but has yet to approve it officially, Lomberg said — the team will be allowed to beam 150 megabytes of data to New Horizons.

The One Earth Message would therefore hold about the same amount of information as Voyager's golden records — perhaps 100 images and about an hour of audio, Lomberg said. (Videos would take up too much memory.)

"We're writing a haiku, not a novel," he said.

The digital format would allow the One Earth Message to be more flexible, layered and integrated than was possible with the golden records, Lomberg added. For example, the message could be changed over time by beaming more files to New Horizons. It could also include a map of the world, and every picture and every sound could be tagged to the spot from which it came. [13 Ways to Hunt Intelligent Alien Life]