How to you establish a relationship in modern times? First, send unsolicited nudes. That is, apparently, what the Gen Zers at NASA these days think. The Sun reports that their latest project to communicate with and apparently hook up with aliens involves transmitting binary code images of a pair of nude humans and a double helix out into the furthest reaches of the galaxy.
The image is probably not unfamiliar to the older readers among us, as the Pioneer space probes of the 1970s featured plaques with a similar design. So I guess we were scandalous back then, too. But at least we sent hard copies, which was probably classier.
Overall, sending space nudes is probably a bad idea. It gives the wrong impression. And on one special episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Commander Riker had to deal with the consequences of it during a first contact mission.
-via David Burge