A message in a bottle: This plaque, intended to identify us to alien civilizations, just left the solar system aboard Pioneer 10. It’s now the most distant man-made object in the universe.

It’ll be eons before it’s found, and even then we’ll have to wait while the aliens try to figure it out. It took us centuries just to understand our own Egyptians’ hieroglyphics; the figure above baffled even some human scientists.

But maybe that’s a good thing, some say. Hungry aliens could see it as a map — and a menu.