Newsfrom Japan
Culture Science Technology 2023.08.18 15:57 / 2023.08.18 16:05 Update[Kyodo News, August 18th]In the summer of 1983, people sent a message from the earth to Altair (Aquila). If there is intelligent life, maybe it will respond! Japanese astronomers plan to observe whether there is a response from the direction of Altair on the 22nd of this month after 40 years. Sending a message is a project of “Weekly Shonen Jump” (Shueisha). On August 15, 1983, the seventh day of the lunar calendar, Masaki Morimoto (deceased), a former professor at the National Astronomical Observatory, and others sent a message using radio waves using an antenna at Stanford University in the United States. A total of 13 types of image information, including paleontology and human beings showing the history of life on Earth, and pictures showing the solar system and DNA structure, are added to the radio waves. Shinya Narusawa, a full-time lecturer at Hyogo Prefectural University who had exchanges with Morimoto, will conduct observations. He is the first person in the field of research for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Initiative (SETI). On the evening of the 22nd of this month, he will use the antenna of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Usuda Space Observatory (Saku City, Nagano Prefecture) to conduct observations for about an hour. Altair is about 17 light-years away from the solar system, and it can be considered that the message arrived around 2,000 years ago. About 20 years have passed since then, and Narusawa plans to carry out observations this summer, the 40th anniversary of the launch. It is reported that the cooperation of other universities will also be obtained in the future and the observation will continue. The surface temperature of Altair reaches over 7000 degrees, which is higher than the sun, and no planets have been found around it, so the possibility of intelligent life is extremely low. Narusawa said: “This is a challenge that you don’t know if you don’t do it. If we think about the possibility of intelligent life on other planets, it may become an opportunity to think about the way life on Earth exists.” (End)
