In 1974, to celebrate the remodeling of Puerto Rico’s Arecibo radio telescope, the Arecibo message was sent toward the globular star cluster M13 (located 25,000 light years away from our sun) through radio waves. The message was written by Dr. Francis Drake (of the Drake equation) and Carl Sagan, among others. Aimed at other civilized life, it consisted of 1,679 binary digits and conveys messages about life on Earth. For example, it includes the atomic numbers of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, phosphorus, and nitrogen, which are the components of DNA. When translated into graphics, it contains a stick figure of a human and a rough image of our solar system.
This message, “the most powerful broadcast ever deliberately beamed into space”, is theoretically Earth’s coming out to the universe, our introductory statement, our Twitter bio. However, ironically, by the time the message reaches its intended destination (25,000 years from now), our purported audience (M13) will have moved from this location. The messages’ creators were aware of this irony, and apparently only meant for the Arecibo message mainly to prove the advancements of technology. However, should we be sending messages about Earth to locations where civilizations can theoretically receive them? What should our messages contain? Is it fair for a few scientists to determine the message that will represent our entire solar system?
Pictorial representation of the arecibo message, with explanations
alyssasolarblog 
This seems like a pretty expensive way to show the public our technological advancements. In my opinion I do not think it does us much good and possibly harms us by sending this message, especially since we sent it knowing it would be unsuccessful in its mission. I do not understand why we would want other planets to know the things these scientists sent off via radio.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is pretty cool! Even though the pseudo-intended recipient won’t be there in 25,000 years, even if they were, there’s a chance we wouldn’t exist anymore either! Morbid, I know, but 25,000 years is a very long time and we might be gone before we ever effectively communicate with anyone out there. On the flip side, if we got a message back from someone (assuming it would be at least another 25,000 years on top of that) we might not even have any record left of ever sending that message in the first place– that would be ancient history to the future humans!
LikeLike
Grader comments: Neat post! I think it shows us just a glimpse of how Dr. Sagan’s mind worked, especially with regard to what information was encoded in the message. On another note, now I really want to watch Contact again!
LikeLike