It’s a Hello, from Earth! Is there anyone? We have been waiting for messages from outer space for about half a century, and so far, we have only received silence. Why? Are we the only ones who live in this universe? Or is everyone in the same state as us? Maybe we need to be louder and send more messages! Given all the unknowns “Extra-Terrestrial Space” (ETS) is made up of, should we try to contact at all?
The work done on establishing a link with the unknown is enthralling-- astronomers like Frank Drake started the search for extraterrestrial intelligence with an 85 - foot radio telescope back in 1960. He scanned for interstellar radio waves but did not receive any message. Soon after, an organisation called ‘Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’ was created to proceed with the search and continues to message extraterrestrial bodies. One of the popular messages that humans have ever sent to ETS was written in 1974 by Frank Drake and Carl Sagan – popularly known as the “Arecibo message”(see image). The message was sent to a star cluster 25,000 light-years away and contained 1679 binary digits which on decoding resulted in an image.
“Unidentified Flying Objects” (UFO) became a major subject of interest following the development of rocketry after World War II. The first well-known UFO sighting occurred in 1947 when businessman Kenneth Arnold allegedly saw nine high-speed objects near Mount Rainier in Washington while flying his plane! Fun fact- there are reports of UFO sightings worldwide regularly, the latest one being only 2 days back.
Some theories have stated that whenever two civilizations meet, destruction is always the result, following which experts like Stephen Hawkings warned against sending messages to the Extra Terrestrials as it could become dangerous.
But the curiosity to know the unknown is very powerful! Scientist Peter Beery who has a doctorate in elementary particle physics and is an expert in the field of alien communication has built a website called spacespeak.com where people can send an audio or a text or an image out into space. He uses radio waves that are another form of photons and once a photon is broadcast in space, it never dies or decays but persists in space forever.
What message would you like to send to outer space– share it in the comment section!
Comments