[FPSPACE] Messages From Earth Beamed to Alien World

[LARRY KLAES]

October 9, 2008

Messages From Earth Beamed to Alien World

Written by Nancy Atkinson

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/10/09/messages-from-earth-beamed-to-alien-world/

The powerful opening scene of the movie "Contact" portrays radio and 
television signals from Earth heading out into space. Then later in the 
film, shockingly, one of those signals — a televised speech by Adolf Hitler 
— is beamed back as a reply. Could that really happen? Could an alien 
civilization "find" us from our inherent noise? Or, if we want other 
intelligent life to know we're here, will we have to take a more proactive 
or aggressive approach? Perhaps we'll find out.

Today, messages from Earth were beamed specifically at an alien world 
considered capable of supporting life, the planet Gliese 581c, a 
"super-Earth" located approximately 20 light years from us. The social 
networking site Bebo sponsored a competition for young people to share their 
views and concerns of life on Earth, and the winners' messages were 
transmitted this morning from a radio telescope in Ukraine. Bebo was 
assisted by Dr. Alexander Zaitsev, who says the only way alien civilizations 
might find us is if we specifically make ourselves known.

501 photos, drawings and text messages were translated into binary format 
and beamed through space in a four and a half hour transmission by the huge 
RT-70 radar telescope in Evpatoria, Ukraine, normally used to track 
asteroids.

The transmission started at 0600 GMT on October 9. Oli Madgett, from the 
media company RDF Digital who came up with the idea, said the message 
"passed the Moon in 1.7 seconds, Mars in just four minutes and will leave 
our Solar System before breakfast tomorrow". The media company footed the 
$40,000 (£20,000) bill for the transmission.

The message should reach the Gliese system by about 2029. Any reply to the 
messages probably wouldn't reach Earth for 40 years.

Bebo's intent was to raise awareness for the concerns that young people have 
for the future of Earth, and to generate interest in space exploration. Bebo 
spokesman Mark Charkin said, "A 'Message From Earth' presents an opportunity 
for the digital natives of today… to reconnect with science and the wider 
universe in a simple, fun and immersive way."

Dr. Zaitsev was a consultant for the project, and is one of the world's 
experts in interstellar radio communication and is Chief Scientist of the 
Radio Engineering and Electronics Institute, at the Russian Academy of 
Science. His early work helped design and implement radar devices to study 
Mercury, Venus and Mars and Near-Earth asteroid radar research. Lately, he 
has focused on interstellar radio messaging, and what he calls METI – 
Messaging Extra Terrestrial Intelligence.

"The leakage is of commercial television radio is much weaker than coherent 
sounding radar signals, such as the Arecibo Radio Telescope or the Goldstone 
Solar System Radar," Zaitsev told Universe Today. "The leakage is weakly 
detectable against a background of solar radio emissions. I do not say that 
any imaginable super-aggressive and powerful civilization cannot detect our 
leakage, however."

As opposed to SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, METI 
takes a more proactive approach. In his paper "Making the Case for METI," 
Zaitsev and two colleagues wrote, "It is possible we live in a galaxy where 
everyone is listening and no one is speaking. In order to learn of each 
others' existence - and science - someone has to make the first move."

Zaitsev has been involved in several deliberate transmissions to space in 
hopes of making contact. "Otherwise," he said, "centers of intelligence are 
doomed to remain lonely, unobserved civilizations."

METI, as well as the Bebo project, takes a complete opposite approach from 
the recently formed WETI - Wait for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence.