An asteroid will annihilate Earth exactly 10 years from today. It is so massive that no known technology can destroy or divert it. Plutocrat Elon Musk devises a plan to preserve the Earth to the limits of today’s technology. He calls it the Sleeping Earth Memorial.
The idea is to preserve the legacy of Earth: biological and cultural. Lying deep beneath the surface of our Moon, preserved in the deep freeze of extraterrestrial space, this memorial will make possible the preservation of Earth’s life. To bring us back from the brink, the memorial will include a radio array to deliver a message to the stars, imploring a higher intelligence to come to our aid and resurrect Earth’s legacy. Other wavelengths of life will be emitted to generate a dazzling spectacle, to alert the universe that life was here and that we loved light. When the higher intelligence arrives, they will excavate and find the box containing the memorial.
This is the first design for the seal on the memorial, which constrained itself to universal symbols. The concentric circles represent the orbits of the planets in our solar system. The former Earth is represented by the empty circle. The triangle means “you are here.” The tip of the triangle intercepts the outline of the empty circle, showing that it is connected to the former Earth, but distinct from it, as our Moon is. The DNA helix is representational of all life on Earth, not just humanity. There are three sections of DNA corresponding to Earth being the third planet from the sun. This design represents the entire planet and all the life on it.
The final design differs drastically from this exclusively universal one, due to the input of the US government. Above the eagle there are normally thirteen stars, representing the original thirteen colonies. These have been replaced by the model of the solar system from the previous design. Here, the arrows of war are replaced with the double helix of DNA. The universality of the solar system and the DNA contrast with the US flag and other national symbols, forming an awkward compromise.
