Back in October, it was reported that scientists had planned to create a more updated version of the Arecibo Message.

This message was a radio message that was sent into space an entire 44 years ago in order to catch the attention of aliens.  Now, they are asking the public to help them in choosing which message to send.

Now that a few months have gone by, we’ve had time to think about the best possible thing to send to aliens.  According to sources, teams of 10 students ranging from kindergarten to college are being given the chance to take part in the challenge.

However, the one catch, is that it’s not so simple as just emailing a proposed message. The students will be required to break coded messages, as well as solve complex puzzles, and deal with challenges throughout the year in order to receive details about the challenge.

These challenges will require the teams to prove their knowledge to the Arecibo Observatory, that they know about space sciences, the scientific methods, as well as other related topics.

The challenge is set to run for the course of 9 months, after which the AO will choose a winning team, who will chose the message that will be sent to aliens.