Many believe that it will be difficult for hypothetical aliens to decipher it.
44 years ago, on November 16, 1974, a radio signal was sent from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, the wavelength of which was 12.6 centimeters. The message, 169 seconds long, was composed by astronomers Frank Drake and Carl Sagan, and sent in the direction of the star cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, 25 thousand light-years from Earth. According to scientists, the message would help the aliens that they are not alone in the universe.
The message was a sequence of 1679 digits. In order to begin to decipher it, the values had to be arranged in the form of a rectangle 23 by 73, and only in this form it looked orderly.
The message begins by listing numbers from one to ten in binary. This is followed by the number of protons in the atoms of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and phosphorus, the most important elements in biochemistry. The third part of the message describes nucleotides, which are the building blocks of DNA, and the fourth describes the DNA helix.
Deciphering the next part allows you to get an idea of the average height of a person and roughly imagine the outlines of his figure. The sixth part describes the Sun and the planets of the solar system (including Pluto, which at that time had such a status). The earth on the message is shifted relative to other planets in order to designate it as the source of the message, and the person from the previous part turns out to be "drawn" just above it. Finally, the final part of the message allows you to get some information about the Arecibo telescope itself.
Of course, the likelihood that the message will actually be received by a cameo should not be overestimated, even if extraterrestrial civilizations do exist. Moreover, even if hypothetical representatives of alien intelligence receive a signal from Earth, many scientists assume that it will be difficult for them to decipher it - probably, the very principles by which they organize information are different from those on Earth. One way or another, some experts believe that the message should not at all be considered a serious attempt of mankind to declare itself on a cosmic scale - rather, it was just a rather original way to "mark" the discovery of a powerful radio telescope.
Today, humanity does not have a single direct proof of the existence of other representatives of intelligent life in distant space. Nevertheless, in space there are many stars like the Sun and planets like the Earth, so not all scientists are inclined to completely deny the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations. The fact that we do not see traces of the presence of aliens in space, experts who admit their presence are inclined to explain in different ways: some believe that their civilizations did not last long enough to spread through space, and others that today earthlings simply have an insufficient number information about space in order to be able to notice someone else in it.
Dmitry Istrov
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