We’re still not giving up on trying to contact extraterrestrial life.
On the 50th anniversary of humanity’s first attempt to send out a message, called the Arecibo message, for aliens, an international team of researchers led by Jonathan Jiang of NASA has designed a new missive for extraterrestrial recipients. This new note is actually a 13-page epistle called Beacon in the Galaxy.
The Beacon in the Galaxy contains a basic introduction to mathematics, chemistry, and biology. In addition, the researchers included a plan for when to broadcast the message and where to send the transmission. “The motivation for the design was to deliver the maximum amount of information about our society and the human species in the minimal amount of message,” Jiang explained. “With improvements in digital technology, we can do much better than the [Arecibo message] in 1974.”
Will we finally get a reply from outer space? Only time will tell!
Image credit: Jiang et.al