It was in November 1974 when humans, after setting foot on the Moon and conquering a part of the heavens, decided to venture deeper into the open universe. A radio message was deliberately broadcast using the powerful Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico containing information about the basic chemicals of life, the structure of DNA, Earth’s place in our solar system, and a stick figure of a human.
The message is still traveling in the vastness of space. Nearly fifty years after that simple and elegant message, scientists want to send another broadcast to extraterrestrial intelligence in the Milky Way galaxy, if at all any exists.
The interstellar message has been proposed to be known as the Beacon in the Galaxy, opening communication channels between the human species and ETs. The team of scientists wants to broadcast simple principles for communication, basic mathematical concepts, physics formulas, constituents of DNA along with information about humans, the Earth, and a return address if someone wants to revert.
While the 1974 broadcast was designed by Cornell astronomy professor Frank Drake along with physicist Carl Sagan, the latest endeavour is being led by Dr. Jonathan Jiang from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The team proposes to broadcast these messages using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope in China and the SETI Institute's Allen Telescope Array in northern California to a selected region of the Milky Way which has been proposed as the most likely for life to have developed.
"These powerful new beacons, the successors to the Arecibo radio telescope which transmitted the 1974 message upon which this expanded communication is in part based, can carry forward Arecibo's legacy into the 21st century with this equally well-constructed communication from Earth's technological civilization," the researchers hope.
In a paper, which is yet to be peer reviewed, and published on arxiv, the team says that the message will have digitised depictions of the Solar System, Earth's surface, and human form, along with an invitation for any receiving intelligence to respond.
Astronomers have long worked to identify intelligent life in the Milky Way galaxy. However, results have not been promising. Nasa has detected over 5000 worlds in our own galaxy with the possibility of conditions that could support life. But, studying all these worlds is not possible with the current technology.
The chances of the message being received by an intelligent lifeform are low and that of them responding is even lower. However, scientists remain hopeful of finding our place in the vastness of the cosmos as we continue to venture into deeper space with plans to go beyond our solar system and explore the interstellar medium.
