Stephen Hawking warned before his death that sharing the Earth’s place could be dangerous to humanity if taken by an unfriendly civilization, but others say messaging will not endanger the planet.
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For more than 70 years, astronomers have been searching for radio waves or optical signals from other civilizations in outer space, as most scientists are confident that life has developed in many places out of the 300 million potentially habitable worlds in our galaxy. It is assumed that some life forms have also begun to develop their intelligence and technology, but they have not yet been able to detect what astronomers call the “Great Silence”.
While SETI has long been in the public consciousness, METI, or messaging to extraterrestrial intelligence, is less well known. In the coming months, two groups of astronomers are also preparing to send a signal into space and try to communicate with extraterrestrial life forms – read The Conversation in Article.
This attempt is like when we get lost in the woods and light a fire to find us – in some cases it is really useful and necessary. However, there are those who question whether it is wise to launch such messages in the universe.
Early attempts at contact promised relatively little success; In 1972, NASA equipped Pioneer’s 10 spacecraft launched to Jupiter with a sign with a line drawing of a man and a woman, as well as symbols that suggested the device’s origin. Later, in 1977, the Voyager 1 spacecraft also carried a message, the famous Golden Record, which contained sounds and images of life and culture on Earth.
These spacecraft – and their twin brothers, Pioneer 11 and Voyager 2 – have already left the Solar System, but in infinite space, the chances of a more advanced civilization ever finding them are slim. Electromagnetic radiation, on the other hand, can be much more effective as a beacon.
In 1974, astronomers broadcast the first radio message to strangers from the Arebico Observatory in Puerto Rico. The series of single and zero digits was designed to convey simple information about humanity and was sent to the M13 globular cluster, which is 25,000 light-years from Earth – so it can take quite some time to get an answer.
In addition to purposeful attempts, television and radio broadcasts have been leaking into space for nearly a century, reaching millions of stars, but the sign of these shows is so weak that it fades away from the noise left by the Big Bang shortly after leaving the Solar System.
Nearly half a century after the Arecibo message, two international groups are now once again planning to attempt to communicate with strangers – one of which will be sent by the world’s largest radio telescope in China sometime in 2023.
A series of radio pulses containing prime numbers, mathematical operators, the biochemistry of life, human types, the location of the Earth, and a timestamp will be broadcast by a 500-meter-diameter telescope to a group of tens of millions of stars near the Milky Way galaxy, about 10-20 It is located 000,000 light-years from Earth. Although the signal may reach many possible civilizations in this way, it will take tens of thousands of years for us to get an answer to it.
The other messaging attempt targets a single star, TRAPPIST-1, which has three of its seven planets in the zone that allows the presence of liquid water as well as the formation of life. The Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station in the UK will launch the message on its 39th light-year target on 4 October, so it could take 78 years for intelligent life to take the message and get its response on Earth.
However, the possibility of contact with strangers raises ethical issues, of which METI is no exception; first, in the absence of international consultation, the decision will be made in the hands of a small group of scientists who can speak on behalf of the Earth.
A much deeper question is whether the message is necessary at all, whether the civilization that will one day be friendly. Before the death of the renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, he spoke openly about the dangers of contacting strangers, arguing that knowing the location of the Earth could even destroy humanity. Others see no extra risk in the message, for they believe that a truly advanced civilization will become aware of our existence without it.
Russian-Israeli billionaire Yuri Milner has offered $ 1 million to design a new message and work out the most effective transmission, giving new impetus to the efforts to get in touch. As METI is not constrained to date by any international regulations, experiments continue despite voices of concern.
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