Arecibo Message Sent to Aliens 44 Years Ago From Puerto Rico Gets a Google Doodle! Can Aliens Decode Arecibo Message?
November 16, 2018, completes 44 years of that hope to communicate with the clusters of stars residing about 25,000 light years away from Earth.
Planet Earth is only place known to have humans or living beaings, but many scientists believe that there can be more intelligent creatures somewhere far from the Earth. Today’s Google Doodle honours humankind’s first attempt at communication with intelligent life beyond our planet and in attempt to communicate with them Arecibo Message was sent out from Earth. The Arecibo message sent in 1974 is a three-minute interstellar radio message carrying necessary information about humanity and Earth sent to aliens in the hope that they would receive and decode it. November 16, 2018, completes 44 years of that hope to communicate with the clusters of stars residing about 25,000 light years away from Earth. It was a group of scientists who gathered the Arecibo Observatory amidst in the tropical forests of Puerto Rico. Sir William Henry Perkin: Google Doodle Honours Chemist Who Accidentally Discovered 'Mauveine' Synthetic Dye.
The radio message is a series of 1,679 binary digits (a multiple of two prime numbers) which could be arranged in a grid 73 rows by 23 columns. The historic transmission was intended to demonstrate the capabilities of Arecibo’s recently upgraded radio telescope, whose 1000-foot-diameter dish made it the most powerful in the world at the time. Happy Birthday Google: New Doodle Features Popular Questions Asked During The Last 20 Years.
Watch the video of the world's largest radio telescope, Arecibo Observatory.
Donald Campbell, Cornell University professor of astronomy, who was a research associate at the Arecibo Observatory said, “It was strictly a symbolic event, to show that we could do it.” The message was devised by a team of researchers from Cornell University led by Dr Frank Drake, the astronomer and astrophysicist responsible for the Drake Equation (a means of estimating the number of planets hosting celestial life within the Milky Way galaxy.
The Arecibo Message will take about 25,000 years to reach its intended destination. We will have to wait a really long time for an answer. But how long? Will we ever be able to communicate with the Aliens? Before that, will the intelligent life beyond our planet be able to decode the message we have sent? In the 44 years, the message has travelled only 259 trillion miles, a tiny fraction to its final destination.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 16, 2018 07:23 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).