Scientists have created a new message for intelligent extraterrestrials. They want to know if they should send it.
The technology is not ready. It would take thousands of years for the note to reach its destination if it is transmitted. No one expects a return message soon. The researchers behind the alien memo hope their ideas will open up a dialogue about how to contact aliens and what to say.
Jonathan Jiang, an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, told Live Science that they want to send a message in a bottle in the ocean.
Why are we still looking for intelligent alien life?
The message designed by Jiang and his team builds on previous missives that humanity has sent to space; in fact, researchers timed the creation of the new message for the 50th anniversary of the Arecibo message.
The 1974 message used code to convey information about the base 10 counting system, common important elements and a map of the solar system. The new message, described in a paper published to the preprint database arXiv, describes basic math, physics and biology that aliens would need in order to understand humans. It would include a map of the solar system and Earth, as well as information about the makeup of the planet and its atmosphere.
The message is more advanced than before. The Arecibo message shows the location of Earth in the center of the universe, but the map of Earth in the center of the universe is more precise. Scientists tried to use the location of rotating stars called pulsars as a signpost to locate Earth. The positions of the stars in the universe are not easily differentiated from one another. The team used the stars in the Milky Way as landmarks on their map. These spherical huddles of stars are bright and easy to see, and they can act as signposts.
The researchers included a time stamp so that any alien who intercepts the message would know when it was sent. How do you convey time to an alien civilization that may have different ways of measuring?
The answer, according to the message co-designer, was in the hydrogen atom. The neutral hydrogen can enter a high-energy state after being hit by other atoms or electrons. After about 10 million years, one of these high-energy hydrogens undergoes a transition back to a lower-energy state. The spin-flip transition provides a convenient unit of time for communicating how long after the Big bang the message was sent.
When someone receives it, they know when it was sent, Jin told Live Science. They can build on that.
Jin said that it might be possible to send multiple messages with updated time stamps and information, so that a theoretical alien civilization could learn more about Earth over time.
The search for SETI can be split into two methods. In SETI, scientists use telescopes to look for signs of intelligent life. Radio waves might be sent by an alien civilization.
Sending signals is part of active SETI. Most of these efforts have been symbolic. The plaques depicting a line drawing of a man and a woman were meant to show where the craft originated. The plaques were designed to travel outside the solar system, but the chances of finding them in space are very small.
The Golden Record was launched by NASA in 1977. There are animal sounds and greetings on the record. The new message was designed by a committee headed by Carl Sagan, a science systems engineer at JPL and a co-designer of the new message.
To follow up on that has been an honor. The new message includes a line drawing of a man and a woman similar to those on the Pioneer plaques, but with a more egalitarian spin: While only the man in the 1970s version was raising his hand in greeting, both the man and the woman are waving hello in the modern illustration.
The Arecibo message was an Earth-based effort. In 1974 it was sent from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico to the globular star cluster M13. Jiang and his colleagues wrote in their paper that this message is still on its journey to its intended destination, and that it has traveled less than 2% of the distance it needs to travel.
Jiang told Live Science that the message would be beamed toward a ring of stars. He said that the region is thought to contain a number of planets in the habitable zones of their stars.
He said that aliens are most likely to be there.
The Arecibo telescope collapsed in 2020 and was demolished. The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope in Guizhou, China, also known as the Tianyan telescope, is the most likely to transmit the message. The telescopes can only receive messages at the moment, but they could add transmission abilities in the future.
The researchers hope to reignite interest in listening for messages and to spark a conversation about what to send to extraterrestrials. Humans broadcast radio, television and radar signals into space, according to The Planetary Society. Stuart Taylor, an astronomer at the SETI Institute who helped craft the new message, said that the bubble will continue to grow and that the impression humanity is giving off may not be the best.
Taylor told Live Science that it would be better if they sent a positive message. The hope is that an alien civilization advanced enough to reach for the stars would be very cooperative and have good advice for Earthlings on how to reconcile our differences.
Taylor said that they are kind of the Chimpanzees and that other civilization may have a more peaceful personality.
It was originally published on Live Science.
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