Posted on 12/02/2011 12:53:10 PM PST by Daffynition
Somewhere in the cosmos, 36 light years away from us in the direction of the Hercules constellation, a series of electromagnetic waves stretching across 30 million miles of space carries a message from Earth. Each of the 1,679 signals it contains falls in one of two frequencies – an FM signal that translates to a bunch of ones and zeroes.
This message originated in 1974, when it was broadcast from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico to commemorate the facility's renovation. The authors of the message, Carl Sagan and SETI founder Frank Drake, hoped that any aliens who happened to receive it might notice that 1,679 is the product of two prime numbers, 23 and 73, and if you arrange all the zeroes and ones in a grid of 23 columns and 73 rows, you get a series of simple, ASCII-like pictures, including a double helix and a crude image of a person. Whether or not an alien civilization could crack the code, they would at least notice something funny about these FM signals. They're 10 million times stronger than the background noise from our sun.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
“Send more Chuck Berry...”
“Send more Chuck Berry...”
Beat me
I thnk we should broadcast episodes of the Simpsons.
That show seems to pretty accurately address almost every aspect of life in the U.S.
I think we should be as quiet as a mouse, until we’re ready and able to destroy everything that might come our way.
Build the beacon with your own money and no one would have an issue with it.
I share the concern of Stephen Hawking that we maybe should not advertise who we are and where we are at least someone picking up those signals might come visiting with sinister intent. Better that we just listen first.
I can’t remember the comedian but he had a bit about how he didn’t think it was a good idea to be beaming messages into space.
What happens if there’s an answer: won’t we feel stupid, then?
“Hey Earth! Welcome! Come on up and visit!”
We’ll have to be all, “Um….say. Could you meet us at the moon? And we can only bring 3 guys…..and one of them is going to have to stay in the car…..”
Mars Attacks? Independence Day??? I read in history where a giant “X” was carved out in the desert of AZ or NM and lit up with tar or pitch at night as a beacon. Problem was that it diminished to a dot somewhere past the moon; considering geometry and all that.
omg, war of the worlds revisited?
"They blew up Congress....HA HA HA HA!"
Yeah. Have the beacon transmit “Gimme gimme gimme and have someone else pay for it.” Any alien with half a brain would steer clear of us after that.
Hey wait a minute you might have something there! Maybe we can sell them our Treasury Bonds!
Aren’t the radio speeches of Hitler and FDR the farthest things out there from earth?
Only wish. I wonder if Slim Whitman could be played over some large dish pointed at the skies and see what may blow up.
That always struck me as a pointless notion - I doubt an aggressive alien species would be able to reach the level of shear technological power needed for viable interstellar travel, without first destroying itself.
Plus, it’s unlikely we’d have anything to offer that wouldn’t be “economically” easier to find closer to their own system.
Think about it does anyone, anywhere, really know, where obama came from?
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