The most powerful signal ever beamed into space was broadcast from the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Peurto Rico. Frank Drake, creator of the Drake Equation and a SETI researcher, designed the broadcast which was intended to demonstrate humanity's level of technological achievement. The Arecibo Message is the most well-known attempt to message extraterrestrial intelligence.
A team of researchers led by Jonathan H. Jiang of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have come up with a new signal to mark the occasion. This updated signal combines aspects of the original Arecibo Message with every METI attempt made to date, like the Pioneer Plaques, the Voyager Golden Records, and the Evpatoria Transmission Messages.
Jiang was joined by researchers from the SETI Institute, the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, the University of Cambridge, the Hanze University of Applied Sciences, the Chevron Energy Technology Company, the School of Physics and Technology at Wuhan University, Beijing Normal University, and the University of California at The paper about their findings appeared online.
The transmission was part of a ceremony that marked the end of a three-year upgrade to the Arecibo Radio Telescope. Modifications to the superstructure to accommodate S-band frequencies, a high-power S-band radar transmitter, and aluminum panels on the giant spherical reflector antenna were included. If the receiving antenna was the same size as Arecibo, the emission was equivalent to a 20 trillion watt broadcast.
M13 is a star cluster located near the edge of the Milky Way. The cluster is estimated to be more than 11 years old and contains hundreds of thousands of stars. Drake and Sagan believed that using prime numbers would make it easier for an alien civilization to translate their message.
Jiang told Universe Today that the Arecibo Message was the first carefully designed message to be sent into space.
The broadcast consisted of a 1,679-binary digit pictogram, which is the product of two prime numbers, arranged into 73 lines of 23 characters per line. The total broadcast lasted less than three minutes and the frequencies were shifted at a rate of 10 bits per 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- They gave a series of information in different colors. These were included.
Since the beginning of the Space Age, numerous METI attempts have been made. The first radio signal to be deliberately broadcast to space was sent in 1962. A series of radio messages were sent to Venus with three words in Russian.
Between 1999 and 2016 there were several attempts to target stars between 17 and 69 light-years from the Earth. A $1,000,000 prize will be given to the winner of the international competition in the coming years. The paper was co-authored by a retired energy industry engineer.
“Following the 1974 Arecibo Message there were two transmissions made from the Evpatoria 70-meter dish located in the Crimea, Ukraine, these occurring in 1999 and 2003. The Evpatoria transmissions were overseen by a pair of Canadian researchers, Dr. Yvan Dutil and Stéphane Dumas, and were beamed at a total of nine relatively nearby stars ranging in distance from Earth of 10.1 to 21.6 parsec. The 2003 transmission utilized a more robust (i.e., distortion/error resistant) version of the message sent in 1999.”
Pioneer 10 and 11 were the first robotic missions dispatched to the outer Solar System. The first message in a bottle was sent to space by humans. They depict the location of Earth, two circles representing neutral hydrogen, and a naked man and woman.
The cover depicted instructions on how to play the record, which contained sounds and images, and was meant to be a time capsule. The maps depicted on the Pioneer Plaques are the same ones depicted on the pulsar maps.
The 13 parts of the BITG message have an effective number of 204,000. The team determined that the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) in China and the SETI Institute's Allen Telescope array in northern California would be well-positioned to send the beacon.
Jiang and his colleagues chose a ring of 4 kiloparsecs to be the target of the broadcast. Jiang and other co-authors determined in a previous study that the center of the galaxy is the most likely place for intelligent life to have arisen. The research shows that the galactic center is the best place to look for technosignatures.
The stars from the center of the galaxy are the intended destination. Jiang said that they maximized the chances of the message being received by an ei and maximized the chance of a response in the distant future.
The message was written and designed by co-authors Matthew Chong, Hanjie Li, and Qitian Jin. The elements from all METI attempts are incorporated into the beacon message.
There is a new combination of graphical information in the form of images and alphabets to represent numbers, elements, DNA, land, ocean. The same mathematical language is used by the Beacon and Arecibo.
“The BITG message starts and ends with a prime number set (2, 3, 5, 7, 11…) to let itself stand out from the EM waves that can be easily picked up by extraterrestrial intelligent (ETI) civilizations. A new mechanism in message design may help ETI to decode our message: the Row Length Indicator (RLI), which is a repetition of a designated number of zeros and ones. The original Arecibo message is a rectangular block with the same number of elements per row. With RLI, the message can be made of several matrices of zeros and ones in different sizes that enable more flexibility to the content design and decode by ETIs.”
The BITG message has a location stamp and a time stamp. The Time Stamp uses Hydrogen Spin-Flip to estimate the time we create and send a message.
The publication of the message comes at a good time. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has been rejuvenated thanks to renewed interest in space exploration. There is a debate between advocates forPassive-SETI and Active-SETI. Some feel that METI is more global than conventional SETI, while others feel it is riskier.
Jiang and his colleagues emphasize that no formal discussion has taken place regarding the risks or ethics of broadcasting. Jiang points out that humanity is already spreading.
“[W]e are aware that there have been calls for discussions on whether it’s safe to broadcast this type of message. It is always worth pointing out that we humans are unintentionally sending out signals about our presence, albeit at a much lower intensity, which signals have not been designed to put us in the best light (e.g. the ongoing war). They likely would have managed their contact better if there had been intentional communication sent out.”
The team believes that the ongoing development of the beacon message may help ensure that this conversation takes place. The open nature of their work makes it essential to any METI effort. Said Jiang.
There are concerns that power could initiate a broadcast without being open to the rest of the world. This is another reason to promote broadcasts with open participation. Our BITG message is being finalized and published openly, inviting feedback from all interested parties.
Stuart Taylor is a nuclear physicist with the SETI Institute.
At the height of the first Space Age, the Arecibo Message was broadcast and showcased what humanity's facilities were capable of. The loss of the Arecibo Observatory felt like the end of an era for many people. Updating and adding to what was undoubtedly one of our greatest hits seems appropriate as we enter a renewed era of space exploration and astronomy.
Further reading: arXiv
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