Check out the trailer for my upcoming episode! In keeping with the theme of major moments in SETI and METI, we’ll be looking at the Arecibo Message. Beyond being a major milestone in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), it was also humanity’s first true effort at Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI). The coded radio message was broadcast from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico on Nov. 16th, 1974.
It consisted of a simple pictorial message of 1679 bits, arranged into 73 lines of 23 characters (both prime numbers). The message contained a graphic showing the Arecibo telescope, our Solar System, DNA, a stick figure of a human, and some of the biochemicals that make up life on Earth. The entire message lasted less than three minutes and was aimed at the globular star cluster M13, located 21,000 light-years away.
Almost fifty years later, the Message remains a focal point in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), the ethics of messaging, and why we haven’t heard from any extraterrestrial civilization (the Fermi Paradox). What’s more, a growing movement today wants to see more METI efforts in the future.
https://www.patreon.com/houseofwilliams/posts/coming-soon-171278340
