For what reason, NASA sends a new signal to aliens? Source: (https://bit.ly/3NniOpP) Should we transmit another message to possible extraterrestrial intelligences in the Milky Way galaxy? Yes, say a team of scientists led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Los Angeles, who have developed a binary-coded message that contains images of humans, our cosmic address and a request to RSVP. If it’s transmitted, this so-called “Beacon in the Galaxy” will follow a tradition begun in 1974 when scientists sent a message containing basic information about us and our planet into space using the now-defunct Arecibo radio telescope. It’s an update to the famed Arecibo message, which was designed by Frank Drake, an American astronomer whose famous Drake Equation seeks to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in our Milky Way galaxy. Although the Arecibo message described humanity and our place in space in simple graphic terms, it was more a demonstration of human technological achievement. So too the “Beacon in the Galaxy,” which will also be coded in binary. The concept, published as a pre-print, has been submitted to the Journal of Galaxies. Not much so far ... since its target is M13, a globular cluster of ancient stars, is 25,000 light-years distant, and radio signals travel at the speed of light, the message—sent at wavelength 126 millimeters is only 48 years into its long journey. “The electromagnetic waves conveying the Arecibo Message have traversed less than 0.2% of the distance to their intended target,” reads the paper. The “Beacon in the Galaxy” is an effort to use basic mathematical and physical concepts to establish a universal means of communication that could be decoded and interpreted by intelligences not of this Earth. Cue binary coding (the simplest form of mathematics and likely universal across all intelligence), and a message that focuses almost entirely on mathematics and physics rather than possibly confusing human culture and language. It’s also carefully-crafted to illicit the kind of reply that humans would want from an extraterrestrial intelligence; it’s an invitation for a cosmic conversation that could span many centuries. What is in the ‘Beacon in the Galaxy?’ - information on the biochemical composition of life on Earth (including a visual depiction of the four constituent bases of DNA: adenosine, cytidine, guanosine, and thymidine). - a timeline originating from the Big Bang to indicate the universal time the signal was sent (and also scientific dates of events that advanced humanity, such as Isaac Newton discovering his Laws of motion and force, Einstein’s Relativity, the start of the Space Age and the Moon landing in 1969). - the Solar System's time-stamped position in the Milky Way relative to known globular clusters (so aliens know where to beam their reply and when to expect their message to arrive). - digitized depictions of the Solar System and Earth’s surface. - digitized images of humans. - an invitation for any receiving intelligences to respond (an image of the transmitting telescope and another generic telescope sending transmissions to each other). “Since the first faint flickering of sentience dawned in the primal minds of modern humans’ distant ancestors some hundred thousand generations ago, we have sought to communicate,” reads the paper. It goes on to say that ancient scholars gazed at the stars and asked the most profound of all questions: are we alone? “It would take five millennium to progress from Sumerian cuneiform to the great radio telescopes of the 20th and 21st centuries – and with that, the means to finally begin seeking out an answer,” it reads. The beamed radio wave coded in binary will be sent using one of the two biggest and most powerful radio telescopes on Earth the familiar dish-shaped Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST, but also called “Tianyan”) in Guizhou, southwest China and the 42 antennas of the SETI Institute's Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in Hat Creek, northern California. FAST is the successor to the collapsed Arecibo radio telescope, but it has is overall performance and sensitivity are several times higher. There is one small problem—both FAST and the ATA can only receive radio messages, not send them—but upcoming upgrades may fix this. The authors suggest aiming for the area of the Milky Way most likely to contain intelligent life, reckoning that to be a star cluster between two and six kiloparsecs (kph) from the center of the galaxy. A kiloparsec is equivalent to 3,260 light years, so we’re talking about star cluster roughly 6,000 to 20,000 light-years distant. That’s a lot closer than the target of the Arecibo Message … though not exactly close. “We maximize the chances of the message being received by an ETI,” reads the paper. “Thus, we maximize the probability of receiving a response in the distant future.” It’s no accident that the appearance of the “Beacon in the Galaxy” comes just before the 50th anniversary of the Arecibo Message, but the actual timing is crucial if it’s to reach the intended destination. For the message to travel to its target with maximum contrast, the least radio interference and to reduce absorption by the Earth’s atmosphere it would need to be sent when the separation angle between the Earth and the Sun is as large as possible. That means around March 30 or October 4 in any given year. What is the “Beacon in the Galaxy” actually for? “This message’s ultimate goal is to start a dialogue … no matter how far in the future that might occur,” reads the paper. “Humanity has a compelling story to share and the desire to know of others’ and now the means to do so.”