Group that wants to contact aliens will transmit to TRAPPIST-1 system

Matthew Sparkes is a writer.

A message containing scientific data and samples of music will be broadcast to a star system 39 light years from Earth in the hopes of sparking conversation with an advanced alien intelligence.

The first message was sent by the San Francisco based organisation. METI aims to contact other civilisations rather than just listen for evidence of them, which is why it is different from the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Sending such messages requires huge transmitters because the strength of the signal rapidly decreases over enormous distances.

The message will be sent from the Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station in Cornwall, UK, towards TRAPPIST-1 on October 4. The Goldilocks zone is where water could remain liquid and support life.

Douglas Vakoch says the transmission will be formed from short pulse sent in four different phases. The beginning will be a series of bursts to identify it as an artificial message, and it will then go on to describe simple counting, set out details of the periodic table and relay depictions of atoms before including several musical samples.

Vakoch says the goal is to have redundant information, multiple ways of representing that information, and humility to say that what seems obvious to us may not be obvious to the extraterrestrials.

Ode 1 will be included in the music portion of the message. To the Herald of God. A Beauty of the Earth, Journey Through the Asteroid Belt, and tracks from DJs and musicians are included in the festival.

If life forms in the TRAPPIST-1 system get the message and reply, it will take 80 years to get word from them.

We are testing a version of the zoo hypothesis that they are out there, but in order to gain access to the galactic club, we have.

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