After decades of fruitless scanning of space for messages from aliens, scientists say it's time to apply a basic rule of etiquette: "Say hello first."
According to members of a new San Francisco-based organization called METI, humans should turn to aliens themselves, not just wait for them to call them.
Their project is about sending a message by the end of 2018 using radio or laser signals, the mathematical equivalent of which will mean: "We are here and would like to communicate!", Not only to our nearest star Proxima Centauri, but more distant regions of space, hundreds and thousands of light years from Earth.
This would be the first attempt to send powerful, repetitive and deliberate messages into space, directed towards the same stars over several months or even years.
“This could be the beginning of a wonderful friendship,” said Douglas Vacoch, president of METI and former director of the Mountain View Institute for Searching for Extraterrestrials known as SETI. "If we want to start a multi-generational communication, we need to learn and share information."
Sending an impulse that will eclipse the sun is quite a serious intention. Founded last year, an international non-profit organization plans to start raising funds needed to build a powerful transmitter in a remote location. Part of the mission will be to create the perfect message for humanity to say “Hello”.
However, some scientists are wondering, "If aliens are hostile, do we really want them to know where we are?"
“We have to turn down the volume so that we don't get noticed,” insists theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking and science fiction writer David Brin.
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“We know absolutely nothing about who the aliens are, it can be dangerous,” physicist Mark Buchanan expressed his opinion.
Other experts believe that it is worth waiting until we become quite serious interlocutors.
“We're just young people in a galaxy 13.8 billion years old, and babbling isn't always appreciated in adult conversation,” said Andrew Franknoy, head of the astronomy department at Foothill College, California. Why not listen and learn to grow up?
However, there are those who are ready to support these efforts. “I would be happy if it was done,” said astronomer Seth Shostak. - I think that we have a lot to learn and there is nothing to be afraid of, at least we will be able to discover something truly revolutionary: “We have interlocutors nearby.”
“We are thinking about how we can communicate that we are human to those who are different from us,” said Dahlia Rawson, director of ballet in Silicon Valley. "Looking at our bodies, our movements and our dance through the eyes of aliens, we ourselves gain a new understanding of what it means to be human."
In the early 1970s, NASA's Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecraft sailed into deep space carrying a plaque announcing the location of the solar system. More recently, concerts by Vivaldi and Gershwin, as well as the Beatles' song "Through the Universe", have been broadcast into outer space.
By listening to space, humanity expects aliens to take the lead. “If everyone who can send a message will wait for it, then the galaxy will remain silent,” said Fraknoy.
What are the chances that someone in space can hear us? Until recently, this seemed unlikely. But now the Kepler space telescope has discovered 2,950 exoplanets. And if their inhabitants turn out to be talkative, then such a conversation will become one of the most exciting events in human history.
But these planets are very, very far away. The nearest Proxima Centauri is 4.25 light years away, so their response will travel to Earth for more than eight years. And what about advanced civilizations that are hundreds or thousands of light years from Earth. Thus, the waiting time for a response can be much longer than one human life. Douglas Vacoch believes it will be a “multi-generational project”.
Another problem: it's possible that our extraterrestrial friends might miss the message. Therefore, it will have to be repeated over time so that it does not get lost in the galactic noise.
Finally, communication requires a common "language" such as mathematics and science. But scientists do not see a problem in this either.
“If they have radio transmitters, then they are good engineers. And every engineer knows that 2 + 2 = 4, - said Vakoch. "This is true, both on Earth and on Proxima Centauri."
So what does humanity want to say about itself? Scientists believe that people can show their love for mathematics, even a simple sequence of numbers from 1 to 10 can be a good start to a conversation. In addition, we could show the periodic table and the Fibonacci sequence. We could even share our understanding of logic and collaboration.
After all, there is hope that this heavenly dialogue could last for millennia. Will humans be able to maintain interstellar conversation for so long? This is already a problem for earthlings.
Voronina Svetlana
