The new message is really cool, but we need to have a serious discussion about whether we should be trying to contact extraterrestrials.
An international team of scientists has formulated an updated, binary-coded message that could eventually be transmitted to aliens in our galaxy. It's jam-packed with details, including the chemical makeup of humans, a map of Earth, and even our precise location in the Milky Way. What could possibly go wrong?
The Beacon in the Galaxy (BITG) message, as it's called, is an update to the Arecibo message of 1974. Indeed, it's been nearly 50 years since science popularizer Carl Sagan and SETI pioneer Frank Drake crafted their famous message to extraterrestrials, so an update makes a lot of sense, given the many advancements in digital technology since that time. A paper describing the new message was recently uploaded to the arXiv, and it's currently awaiting peer review.
[Also Covered By]: VICE, ScienceDaily
Should we broadcast such messages or not ? What do you think ?
Journal Reference:
Jonathan H. Jiang, Hanjie Li, Matthew Chong, et al. A Beacon in the Galaxy: Updated Arecibo Message for Potential FAST and SETI Projects, Galaxies (DOI: 10.3390/galaxies10020055)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @12:05AM (3 children)
It's not goetse, is it?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Kell on Sunday April 03 2022, @05:37AM (2 children)
It's our way of saying that we're 'open' to contact.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 3, Funny) by mcgrew on Monday April 04 2022, @02:49PM
Octopuses are incredibly intelligent. I just found out that they're considered a delicacy in Spain, and there's at least one restaurant in New York City that serves it.
If we do ever find intelligent space aliens, they'd better hope they're not tasty or we'll eat them.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Monday April 04 2022, @04:41PM
It's our way of saying . . .
Stop here!
Refuel.
Load up on resources.
All you can eat buffet -- planet wide!
Next stop 50 light years
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 03 2022, @12:39AM (25 children)
We shouldn't be advertising our location to potentially hostile, and almost certainly technologically superior beings.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday April 03 2022, @12:50AM (6 children)
How close is the nearest technologically superior civilization? If they have even slight superiority in space telescopes and are nearby, they would have already noticed the Earth-like planet known as Earth, the presence of life/vegetation, and maybe even signs of industrialization.
Let's say scientists beam the message at a target 200 light years away with hostile aliens. It's not your problem unless you are around for another 400 years, or if they have faster-than-light technology in which case we are already fucked.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/5-000-exoplanets-nasa-confirms-a-cosmic-milestone/ [scientificamerican.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @01:54AM (4 children)
The visible universe is a large place. If we don't advertise they might not notice us that quickly.
If they're anything like us they'll come over here to "regime change" us/ give us "peace" to provide more excuses to fund their military industrial complex.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Sunday April 03 2022, @02:59AM (3 children)
Or they might just want to harvest us as a delicacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Taste [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday April 03 2022, @09:47AM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by jman on Sunday April 03 2022, @04:51PM
Beat me to it ... one of my favorite Damon Knight stories!
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday April 04 2022, @10:02AM
Which of course is predated by (and is based on) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Serve_Man [wikipedia.org]
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday April 04 2022, @02:56PM
We Still haven't found extraforgostic life [mcgrewbooks.com]
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @12:55AM (1 child)
Runaway's worried about being galactically doxxed!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 03 2022, @01:10AM
More worried about Darth Vladimir wanting to put a base on earth.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @03:02AM (4 children)
Extraterrestrials capable of reaching earth didn't kill themselves off in a nuclear holocaust before achieving interstellar space travel. This suggests that they are less aggressive than the hairless apes infesting this planet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @03:12AM
Or they don't have to worry so much about induhvidual freedumbs, like the buggers in the Ender series.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday April 03 2022, @04:19AM (2 children)
Only if you conflate aggressiveness with suicide. It's worth noting that the hairless apes haven't offed themselves in a nuclear holocaust, so those guys are already less aggressive than you're claiming. Meanwhile said aliens may be the sole survivors of a nuclear holocaust that they started themselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @05:49AM (1 child)
unless
(Score: 0, Redundant) by khallow on Sunday April 03 2022, @02:16PM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @05:16AM
same old story: a shit hole with no significant energy source gets ignored. as long as we can't "assemble" energy and just destroy resources we can scream and wave and flash lights into the depths of the universe and safely be ignored ... unless we're the eqivalent of galactic squids or tuna or whale meat?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday April 03 2022, @08:03AM (4 children)
Hate to break it to you but Earth has been advertising it's presence for just under a Century. The first really powerful broadcast of radio energy was the transmission of the 1936 Olympics in Germany. And after that Humanity filled the frequencies with loud transmissions.
Any civilization within 100 light years that has ever pointed a radio telescope at us already knows we're here. Interesting thing is that beyond that range the Earth is completely silent. The only thing another race would possibly hear from our solar system is the natural radio emissions of Jupiter's Aurora and lightning storms.
Even if another civ did have viable FTL they would likely already have a probe sitting at a Jupiter Larange point monitoring us because lets face it, we're more of a threat to ourselves than we could possibly be to any civ outside our solar system.
Sending a new signal wouldn't put Earth at any more risk than it already is in.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nuke on Sunday April 03 2022, @12:29PM (3 children)
Is it too late to send another broadcast saying that we have since got rid of the guy with the funny moustache?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @06:47PM (2 children)
There's no point until we get rid of all the guys who want to emulate the guy with the funny moustache.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Phoenix666 on Sunday April 03 2022, @07:59PM (1 child)
The consternation with trying to get rid of all the guys who want to emulate the guy with the funny moustache is that you rather wind up multiplying the number of guys who want to emulate the guy with the funny moustache, because you help convince others that maybe they have a point, which is that killing everyone you don't like is the answer.
The real answer, the real antidote, is dialogue and democracy. So all that free speech stuff and all those rights that it's so fashionable to slam right now are the only thing that effectively counters extremism and violence.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Monday April 04 2022, @10:06AM
You are making a bold assumption: That the only way to get rid of someone is to kill him.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Sunday April 03 2022, @03:20PM (4 children)
Well, I'll grant you that it's a safe bet that anyone capable of detecting our broadcast would almost certainly be technologically superior. Vastly so in fact. A more primitive species couldn't detect the signal, and given the timescales involved in stellar formation it's a near certainty that the technology gap between any two species would be thousands of years, if not millions or even billions.
However, it's also a safe bet that anyone capable of detecting our signal already knows that we're here, so I don't know that it makes any sense to try to hide.
Consider:
Telescopes are almost certainly a simple and dirt-cheap technology compared to interstellar invasion fleets or doomsday weapons.
And our oxygen-rich atmosphere has been broadcasting "There is life here" to anyone who cares to look for almost a billion years - free oxygen is far too volatile to last long without being continuously replenished in some sort of energy-consuming reaction that we've yet to think of any prolific geological source for. We're already beginning to identify the atmospheric compositions of extra-solar planets, so it's a safe bet that any advanced hostile aliens are far better at it.
Even if they've never encountered oxygen-breathing life before, our atmosphere should at the bare minimum put our planet on a list of freakish anomalies for any species with even a passing interest in alien planets. And any advanced species watching Earth would have a hard time missing the last century of broadcasts, or the recent accumulation of industrial gasses in our atmosphere. With a gravitational lens telescope there's a good chance they could even see seasonal changes and urban sprawl.
About the only scenario where hiding makes sense is if we postulate a species that
- is so convinced they are alone in the universe that they never bothered to look for others
- have absolutely no interest in colonizing our star system (otherwise they would have looked closely enough to notice us)
- are near enough to hear us by accident.
- and are cowardly or genocidal enough to want to wipe us out on general principles.
That, or I suppose the non-sapient doomsday weapon scenario - something without the intelligence or curiosity to look for us, but that homes in on sufficiently powerful structured radio broadcasts.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday April 03 2022, @03:25PM
... and in either of those scenarios we're living on borrowed time anyway, so it's not worth worrying about.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 03 2022, @05:03PM (2 children)
I've got an alternate scenario.
Yes of course we've been broadcasting for a century. Little of that broadcast has been intentionally beamed into space, with the intention of catching another species attention. Given that we discover new stars routinely, and our broadcasts have been infinitesimally less powerful than the smallest of suns, it is reasonable to assume we have escaped notice. Sending weak signals into noisy regions is a sure way to go unnoticed.
Erecting a beacon, presumably more powerful, and more focused, is more likely to attract attention than just more-or-less random signals.
I'll maintain my position that it is foolish to attract attention that may be hostile. Far better that we see them before they see us, at which time we may (or may not) be able to make better informed decisions.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Common Joe on Monday April 04 2022, @03:24AM
Not directly related to the conversation at hand, but I've noticed something interesting which caught my attention concerning the way groups make decisions in the world -- and the beacon into space is an example
Let's keep it simple and say it involves only two groups, with each group containing multiple people. The choice is: does everyone do X or not do X?
If X is not to be done, then everyone in all groups must decide not to do X. If X is done, a small percentage (perhaps a few as only one person) can decide to do X, but it affects everyone in all groups.
The conclusion: In such a scenario, voting does not work; a minority can always controls the majority.
I don't know how many people want or don't want (or even care) to broadcast a message into space, but this example falls right into what I'm saying. It doesn't matter how many people don't want it, the people who want to send a broadcast will get it done no matter what others say. So, for better or worse, humanity is going to send out occasional beacons.
Another example: humanity was destined to learn how to fly because it only took a couple of people to invent it. What took a lot longer is for everyone to figure out is how we should make sure planes so they don't fall out of the sky. (Actually, we're still working on that. Very difficult.) A third example: if the human race wants to be sanitary, we should all wash our hands after using the toilet, but it only takes a few people to decide not to wash their hands thus spreading germs... and thus we live in a germy world. (Side note: it's only in the past few decades that doctors figured out they should wash hands before doing surgery.)
Not every decision is like this, but a lot.
There's no point to what I'm saying. Merely an observation that happens to fit the conversation.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 04 2022, @07:11AM
Oh, dear. Runaway's grasp of the basics of radiation, astronomical distances, and, well, of almost everything, is apparently quite dim. No wonder we overlooked it! But things do not work this way, and so his assumption is asinine, as usual. Runaway, if you do not understand what is going on, perhaps it is the better part of valor to keep your mouth shut, and just listen? Not everything is about what you think.
(Score: 2) by crb3 on Sunday April 03 2022, @12:43AM
First it went offline, now it's gone interstellar...?
(Score: 3, Funny) by SomeGuy on Sunday April 03 2022, @12:45AM
In the far future, billions of light years away an alien scientist decodes a message received from a long extinct planet. It blinks its optical receptors in confoundment as it exclaims:
"Its a damn smart phone advertisement!"
(Score: 4, Touché) by stretch611 on Sunday April 03 2022, @12:47AM (2 children)
Thanks to Trump the new message reads...
We are sorry, by the US and Earth are full. We will not allow any immigration by illegal aliens, especially from planets of non-white aliens.
We have started to build a wall in space to keep you out. Please notify us of where your alien government is so that we may send them the bill for building this space wall.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday April 04 2022, @04:47PM (1 child)
The wall will be built around the earth. It will be called a Donaldson Sphere.
It not only keeps out all alien life, it keeps out all sunlight.
This will be a huge boon to the fossil fuel industries due to the increased energy demands to heat and light the dark earth. So it's a win for everyone!
So there liburals! How's your green energy now?!
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday April 18 2022, @01:12PM
Old Monty Burns had a very similar plan himself. Hey Mr. lamppost, what you knowin', I've come to watch your power flowin'.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @12:51AM (1 child)
Once they see what we do to Aliens in our entertainment and once they see in the news what we do to our fellow humans and what we do to our environment and figure out that we will want to take over their planet for our Happy Meals and Coffee franchises, (God help them if they have Oil)....wwelll.
Sure the only beacon sending a message will be the one they setup up in our Solar system to WARN other Aliens to Stay the Fuck Away from here!
We are some messed up evil ass monkeys.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @01:35AM
Aliens of Russian Jewish descent.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @01:18AM (1 child)
Jew filth shot to hell by "the Lord of Hosts" https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=48537&page=1&cid=1234471#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
get ready for a real "final solution" fuckers. Jews are out of time. Soon.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @05:31AM
I hope that the aliens will purge the earth of men. Ideally there will be the option of sufficiently advanced sci-fi TGTF instead of death, but if not make it quick and put me out of my misery. It's time for a final solution to the male question.
(Score: 4, Informative) by optotronic on Sunday April 03 2022, @01:35AM (4 children)
Of course we shouldn't broadcast such messages. Looking at humanity, which cultures benefited more than suffered when another culture contacted them? Only the invaded cultures' answers are relevant for this question.
It's desirable to imagine that a culture advanced enough to travel from another solar system or galaxy to ours has developed beyond the selfish instincts that drive our minds, but I think it's unlikely. Remember, the benevolence in some humans is (nearly?) always eventually overridden by the greedy.
You may say aliens are not humans and therefore not necessarily driven by our baser instincts, but it takes a lot of resources to travel to another solar system or galaxy. Those resources are probably not available to someone we would consider friendly.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @02:09AM
In the past China sent flotillas of ships to visit various places around the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_treasure_voyages [wikipedia.org]
They didn't conquer or negatively exploit that many places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_treasure_ship#Accounts [wikipedia.org]
Not everyone is like the Europeans or the USA.
Not sure about the China today though... ;)
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday April 03 2022, @04:04PM
The thing is, any aliens capable of reaching us almost certainly already know that there's life on Earth: our oxygen rich atmosphere has been broadcasting that fact to anyone who cares to look for almost a billion years.
The fact that they're not here already is proof enough that they have no interest in our planet or star system for any of the "normal" colonial expansion reasons.
So *we* are the only thing they might be interested in that a signal would change.
If they're genocidal then we're living on borrowed time anyway. Trying to hide the presence of a technological civilization on a planet where they know life exists is an exercise in futility.
If they want slaves for some reason... that's unlikely to be a real problem for anyone except those poor sods taken to breed a captive population, which may well have already happened. An interstellar slave trade is unlikely to be viablewithout cheap FTL (which completely changes the entire conversation).
If they want to talk we stand to make huge gains since they'd almost certainly be thousands if not millions of years more advanced than us. (which would still be essentially identical ages on stellar formation timescales)
If they have no interest in talking to hopeless primitives, we've lost nothing.
Also, the resources available for interstellar travel should be plentiful to any species that has expanded beyond their home planet in even the poorest of star systems. 0.1% of their sun's output and the raw material from a few large asteroids would be more than sufficient.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday April 03 2022, @05:07PM
Ah yes, but can the aliens handle our most sophisticated defense systems? I mean, we have coronaviruses [wikipedia.org] and Bill Pullman [wikipedia.org], I think we'll be fine.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday April 04 2022, @04:50PM
Maybe aliens don't recognize us as life? Or as intelligent life? Maybe they only recognize our planet as "uninhabited" and filled with usable resources! Just as how the first European arrivals to North America came to an uninhabited land with no indigenous people.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @03:19AM (2 children)
Are we updating the message to reflect the 32 genders Science knows about now?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @03:59AM
now they can draw the gold record picture in quantum dimensions, sholmost fit the 32 genders.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @04:00AM
https://www.mdpi.com/galaxies/galaxies-10-00055/article_deploy/html/images/galaxies-10-00055-g014-550.jpg [mdpi.com]
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Sunday April 03 2022, @10:39AM
The sciencedaily.com link goes to a different story altogether.
The explanation of the first slide in the gizmodo.com link has an error, displaying prime number 41 as 1. The slide itself is correct though.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by martyb on Sunday April 03 2022, @01:58PM (4 children)
This should be comment #1234567 (If I timed things correctly, that is).
In other words, well over 1.2 million comments have been posted to SoylentNews since we started in February of 2014! Way to go!!!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @02:25PM
Is that with or without the database purge?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03 2022, @06:32PM
Time to remove the spam mod, it stops none of the spammers and has been weaponized by some users.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Monday April 04 2022, @03:28AM (1 child)
You must have been sitting there watching a counter. Interesting that you could time comments well enough to catch the number correctly. Pretty cool.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday April 06 2022, @10:45PM
Only about 4 days, including Friday, Saturday, and a ways into Sunday when comment posting slowed down a LOT. Software testing fosters tremendous patience, perseverance, and tenacity! =)
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Sunday April 03 2022, @07:52PM
"Nothing to see here. Please move along."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Monday April 04 2022, @07:49AM
Have scientists started offing themselves?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 04 2022, @09:01AM (6 children)
I have no idea how some people can get up in the morning, being afraid of monsters under the bed.
There are definitely no hostile aliens with the capability to reach Earth (or they'd be here already). There are almost certainly no spacefaring civilizations in the galaxy (or we would have seen them). There are probably no intelligent aliens in the galaxy (because intelligence probably usually leads to technology). It's 50/50 that there are no aliens more advanced than microbes, and it's possible that there is no alien life at all. The Fermi paradox is no paradox at all - there just aren't any aliens. Science fiction is fun and thought provoking, but it's not much of a guide to the galaxy.
The message, much like the Pioneer and Voyager messages, is not really intended to establish communication with an alien civilization. It is more about what we want to say about ourselves. What we should want to say is that we are here, we are friendly, and we want to meet anyone that's out there (even though we know there's not). And either way, we'll be there soon.
Of course, what some people believe about humanity is more like: I think everyone is violent, I'm afraid of everyone, I hate everyone. And yeah, some people are like that. These are the people that destroy, and we can't let them control us any more than they already do.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday April 04 2022, @10:30AM (2 children)
Correction: There are almost certainly no hostile aliens with the capability to reach Earth. In principle, they could have reached the capability just yesterday. Of course the probability of that is sufficiently low that we can ignore it in practice, but “definitely” is definitely too strong here.
No. If there is a spacefaring civilization at the other end of the galaxy (or really, just a few thousand light years away), there would be no way for us to detect them unless they modify their environment in a drastic way (for example, build a Dyson sphere). Even the emissions of a nuclear bomb would be hidden in the noise from that distance. There may be other reasons that make another spacefaring species in our galaxy unlikely, but the fact that we didn't observe any only tells us that that there are no spacefaring civilizations in our immediate neighbourhood (that is, no more than a few hundred light years away, probably even less).
Ex falso quodlibet.
I wonder where you get that figure from. Yes, it is possible that no higher life forms than bacteria exist in our galaxy outside Earth. But to claim that it is 50/50 you'd need quite some evidence. I don't think you have that evidence.
Well, at least one statement I agree with.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 05 2022, @12:29AM (1 child)
Well, either it could be true, or it could be false.
There's your 50/50.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday April 05 2022, @05:20AM
Then there's a 50/50 chance that you are a moron. Because either you are or you aren't.
Oh, and there's a 50/50 chance that Earth gets attacked by aliens next year. Because either it get's attacked, or it doesn't.
Do you notice something?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday April 04 2022, @04:56PM (2 children)
They came.
They saw.
They built a fence.
They left.
Fermi Paradox solution: They are feeding Voyager 1 & 2 false information. They have mined the ort cloud so that nothing can ever escape the solar system. Furthermore all evidence of civilization beyond our system is filtered and edited out of what we can see. Our signals and transmissions, especially our music and sitcoms, are blocked from leaving the solar system -- for the sanity of all sentient life in the galaxy.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 05 2022, @03:08AM (1 child)
Wasn't that the plot of an old Epic Megagames DOS game? Back in the mode 0x13 era.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday April 05 2022, @02:07PM
I do not know. I would not be surprised.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...