Should we Really Sit And Wait 50,000 Years For A Reply? Update 13 09 2022

When you read the piece below consider the time the signal is going to take to reach its intended destination:

(c)JidoBG

Arecibo Message explained: How researchers sent the first interstellar radio message

Chelsea Ritschel  The Independent

November 16 2018 marks 44 years since researchers sent humankind’s first interstellar radio message – an achievement Google is celebrating with a Google Doodle.

The Arecibo Message, sent from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico in 1974, is a three-minute message of exactly 1,679 binary digits – which, if arranged in a specific way, can explain basic information about humanity and earth to extraterrestrial beings.

Scientists sent the message via frequency modulated radio waves to a cluster of stars 25,000 light years away to demonstrate the power of the Arecibo radio telescope, which was the largest and most powerful in the world at the time.

“It was a strictly symbolic event, to show that we could do it,” Cornell University professor of astronomy Donald Campbell recalled of the momentous event.

The event moved some present to tears as researchers contemplated their own existence and knowledge of planets and solar systems.

The hope is that, in many thousands of years, it may reach another living being.

The actual message was devised by a team of researchers from Cornell University led by astronomer and astrophysicist Dr Frank Drake.

When received, the message could be arranged in a grid 73 rows by 23 columns to form a pictograph that represents facts about mathematics, human DNA, planet earth, and humans.

From top down, the seven-part message can show the numbers one to 10, atomic numbers of elements including hydrogen and oxygen, the formulas for the sugars and bases in the nucleotides of DNA, a graphic of the DNA double helix structure, a figure of a human and the population of earth at the time, a graph of the solar system, and a graph of the telescope.

Since the Arecibo message was sent, the message has travelled just 259 trillion miles – a fraction of its journey to its intended destination, which will take roughly 25,000 years to complete.​

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25,000 years for the message to reach its destination. If it reaches an intelligent life form -if- there is the 25,000 year wait for a returned message. Now, personally, I think sending a message to show off is pointless.  I certainly do not care when it gets to its final destination.  I won’t be alive and I think it is fair to say that no one alive today will be!

Will Earth still be here in 50,000 years?  Humanity? And those are the two minor questions because the main one is will any civilization exist in the area the signal is heading?  Rather like the Voyagers (I and II) their journeys will take thousands upon thousands of years if they are not destroyed in some collision and, again, this was showing off.  Planetary information from both was fantastic so why not just set them to randomly float around the solar system.  I know there are a lot of problems because of age and so on but surely someone must have thought it better to keep roaming our system than become a piece of space litter?

Above: Pioneer 10 launched in 1972

Below: The plaque carried by Pioneer 10

I really do not care that in 40, 60 or 100,000 years an alien space ship may find one of our probes.  To them it may well send a cheery message of “there was intelligent life” out in space.

Again, I personally do not think any advanced alien civilisation would be using radio signals or sending out probes to say “Hello. We’re dead now –sorry you missed us!”

The Andromeda galaxy has an estimated (it may be raised in number at some point) 1 trillion stars. The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia space craft is 3D scanning space and has made somke excellent discoveries. It has created a 3D map of 1.7 billion stars in the Milky Way. Read this item if you are interested: https://www.space.com/40406-gaia-release-color-milky-way-map.html

 

The European Space Agency released a new map of nearly 1.7 billion stars from the Gaia spacecraft, giving the best-ever view of the Milky Way and neighboring galaxies in color.

Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC

Here is a little fact: As of the 1^st November, 2018, there have been 3,874 confirmed planets in 2,892 systems, with 638 systems having more than one planet. If you want more information on how these are detected and distances from Earth then there is a very good Wikipedia entry here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoplanet

We should all know about the “Goldilocks Zone” where we would expect to find habitable or Earth-like planets. So here is another little fact for you: in November of 2013, astronomers reported, based on Kepler space mission data, that there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars and red dwarfs in the Milky Way, 11 billion of which may be orbiting Sun-like stars.

©Jonahl613   Histogram Chart of Discovered Exoplanets as of 26^th November2017

Remember that we only recently discovered “Ghost Galaxies” and that there are suns that travel between galaxies –when it comes to knowing about our solar system and the universe our knowledge is of perhaps about 0.5%.

We should be sending radio signals and messages shorter distances and, considering objects the size of Oumuamua are only discovered by chance, we need to make sure any signals are broadcast throughout our solar system.

Science also needs to get involved in the subject of UFOs but only in the sense of looking at the data and assessing reports –unexplained does not mean “alien” but it would offer us a basic data base to build on and study.  The unwillingness to do this is unscientific and, I believe, cowardly. Hopefully it is just through closed minds rather than fear that their highly paid jobs might be at stake.

That those involved with SETI will not become involved is, to a degree, and we have to be honest, it is understandable. Hopkins, Jacobs et al have made it so that the subject has become farcical. “Millions” of people abducted year in and year out to create a race of alien half-wits.

But we need to concentrate on those reports both old and new that have largely been left untainted and there are many. 

*We are not talking about hundreds of flying saucer crashes and many hundreds of dead aliens

*We are not even looking at extra terrestrials visiting Earth over the centuries as there is no evidence of this except that presented by the bunko crew. 

*We are certainly not talking about “many millions” of alien abductees. 

*We are not talking hundreds or thousands of extra terrestrial space craft being sighted each year.

What we are talking about is far less, rarer activity and, being honest again, re-assessing all of the old reports has left me realising that there is evidence there –even if only anecdotal. 100% evidence is not possible since if landing traces, radiation and other physical evidence is ignored by sceptical ufologists and debunkers (the same thing) or simply waved off as being unexplainable and therefore “not evidence” I doubt that anything would convinced a closed and frightened mind.

By definition, and I find this almost laughable, doing the work I am it is safe to say I am far more involved in SETI than most of those working within SETI!

We really need to get our act together and forget what might happen in 50,000 years!