Scientists have designed a radio message to be beamed into deep space that is meant to be received and, they hope, understood by an intelligent alien civilization.
The message is essentially an updated version of the famous Arecibo message, transmitted in 1974, which had the same purpose. Broadcast from the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico, the message consisted of 1,679 bits arranged into 73 lines of 23 characters.
The message was transmitted in binary code—ones and zeroes. Once decoded, the message forms a visual graphic consisting of a stick figure of a human as well as representations of our solar system, DNA, and the Arecibo telescope.
Now, scientists have designed a new message to improve upon the Arecibo transmission. Called the Beacon in the Galaxy (BITG) message, it contains more information about basic mathematics and science than the Arecibo message did. It is hoped that these concepts will be universally understood by life forms of at least similar intelligence to humans.
Matthew Chong, a physics and maths student at Cambridge University and co-author of a draft report outlining the project, told Newsweek: "Extended from the 1974 Arecibo message and the 1999/2003 Cosmic Call, the main part of this BITG Message contains a new set of graphical information in the form of images and special 'alphabets' to represent numbers, elements, DNA, land, ocean, and human, etc., starting by an artificial header and footer that consists of prime numbers."
The question of whether or not we are alone in the universe has tantalized scientists for decades, but efforts to find intelligent—or even microbial—life anywhere else but Earth have been unsuccessful. Some scientists think that's a good thing.
The late physics professor Stephen Hawking expressed concern multiple times about humans calling out into the vastness of space and contacting aliens.
In 2015, Hawking appeared at an event announcing the launch of the Breakthrough Listen project, which studies radio waves in an effort to find out if any of them are artificial in origin.
Hawking showed support for efforts to find alien life by listening, but warned against actively reaching out ourselves, using humanity's own behavior as a sign that aliens won't necessarily be friendly.
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