No one knows if we are alone in the universe. In order to try to make contact with other intelligent life forms in our galaxy, some laboratories regularly send radio signals out into space. In fact, distant constellations do emit radio waves, but so far they do not seem to have been transmitted intentionally by living creatures. Scientists watch for a regular pattern of signals that might indicate a living transmitter.
E.T. isn’t phoning us, so maybe it’s time for us to phone them. That’s the idea behind a new initiative called METI (Messaging Extra Terrestrial Intelligence), an offshoot of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), that intends to begin beaming targeted messages in 2018 to other star systems that might contain intelligent life.
METI’s messages won’t be the first ones we’ve ever beamed into space. Back in 1974, astronomer Frank Drake used the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico — at the time, the largest radio telescope in the world — to broadcast a long series of rhythmic pulses, 1,679 of them to be exact, with a clear, repetitive structure toward a star cluster called Messier 13, which sits over 25,000 light years from Earth.
Because that message, now known as the Arecibo message, travels at the speed of light, it won’t reach its intended target for another 25,000 years. If there are any aliens living in Messier 13 who happen to have a SETI program of their own, or some equivalent program that listens constantly for alien radio messages, and who happen to have their listening devices pointed in the right direction at the right moment, then perhaps we can expect a call back in around 50,000 years.
In other words, the Arecibo message was not exactly sent to the ideal target. There are star systems we now know of with potentially habitable planets that are much, much closer. METI wants to target these. If there are aliens in our neighborhood, there’s no reason we couldn’t make contact within our own lifetimes.
Picture Credit : Google