Episode 9 of ‘Whenday-o Deep Talk,’ a science prediction show discussing how to find extraterrestrial intelligence
[Editor’s Note] This section introduces a new episode from the YouTube channel ‘Seize’. ‘Seize’ is a new media channel by Dong-A Science that creates science videos for future generations.
If aliens exist, could they receive a message from humanity? And if they did, would they send a reply?
Lee Myung-hyun, a radio astronomer and president of SETI Korea, answered, “Even the first message sent by humanity will take 25,000 years to arrive.” He is referring to the radio message sent into space in 1974 by astronomer Frank Drake. At the time, astronomers transmitted the message to the globular cluster M13, located 25,000 light-years from Earth. This means it will take 25,000 years for the radio waves, traveling at the speed of light, to cover that distance.
Even if aliens receive the message tens of thousands of years from now, a reply would not be easy. The reason is none other than the difficulty of the message itself. The message contained a wide range of information, including humanity’s decimal system and the structure of DNA, but it was all expressed solely in binary—the system presumed to be understandable to extraterrestrial intelligence—making it almost like a cipher. “Even contemporary scientists like Carl Sagan would have struggled to decipher it,” explained Lee.
If sending a message and receiving a reply are both so difficult, can humanity ever confirm the existence of aliens? The scientific community has not given up hope.
Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in the U.S., even asserted at the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Symposium held at Stanford University in February 2014, “By 2040, we will be able to officially confirm an artificial radio signal from space.” The SETI Institute is a private American research organization that has been using radio telescopes to search for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations since the 1960s.
‘Seize’ met with President Lee to hear about the history and future plans of scientists’ search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The full story can be found in the video uploaded on March 11.
●More from Seize the Future
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGOyo_FumOw
Episode 9 of ‘Whenday-o Deep Talk,’ a science prediction show discussing how to find extraterrestrial intelligence
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