Scientists want to put a DNA encyclopedia of human civilization on the moon

“DNA is very durable, and we want data storage that will last on the scale of millions of years,” Nova Spivack, venture capitalist and cofounder of the Arch Mission Foundation, told BuzzFeed News.

The foundation, along with the University of Washington, Microsoft, and Twist Bioscience, intend to make a “special collection” of 20 books and more than 10,000 images, in what is billed as the largest ever encoded DNA data archive.

“DNA is so dense that we can store a lot of information in a single gram,” said University of Washington computer scientist Luis Ceze in a statement on the project. “This is huge because room is so limited in space missions.”