Messages From Earth

Messages From Earth

While SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) spends its time listening to space for signs that there might be someone out there transmitting signals that could reach us, METI (Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is sending out an interstellar wake-up call to our neighbors by re-purposing an old Apollo era transmitting/receiving station.

From Universe Today

Lone Signal: First Continous Message Beacon to Find and Say Hello to an Extraterrestrial Civilization

by Nancy Atkinson on June 12, 2013

Although scientists have been listening for years to search for indications of other sentient life in the Universe, just a few efforts have been made by humans to purposefully send out messages to the cosmos. Called METI (Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence) or Active SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), these messages have so far been just one-time bursts of info – or “pulses in time” said Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra.

Haqq-Misra is leading a team of scientists and entrepreneurs who are launching a new initiative called “Lone Signal” which will send the first continuous mass “hailing messages” out into space, starting later this month. They’ll be specifically targeting one star system, Gliese 526, which has been identified as a potentially habitable solar system.

And yes, the general public can participate.

“From the start we wanted to be an experiment where anyone on Earth could participate,” said Haqq-Misra during a press event on June 11, 2013, announcing the project.

“Our scientific goals are to discover sentient beings outside of our solar system,” said Lone Star co-founder Pierre Fabre, also speaking at the event. “But an important part of this project is to get people to look beyond themselves and their differences by thinking about what they would say to a different civilization. Lone Signal will allow people to do that.”

Lone Signal will be using the recommissioned radio dish at the Jamesburg Earth Station in Carmel, California, one of the dishes used to carry the Apollo Moon landings live to the world.

Lone Signal will be sending two signals: one is a continuous wave (CW) signal, a hailing message that sends a slow binary broadcast to provide basic information about Earth and our Solar System using an encoding system created by astrophysicist and planetary scientist Michael W. Busch. The binary code is based on mathematical “first principles” which reflect established laws that, theoretically, are relatively constant throughout the universe; things like gravity and the structure of the hydrogen atom, etc.

“This hailing message is a language we think could be used to instigate communication,” said Haqq-Misra, “and is the most advanced binary coding currently in use.”

The second signal, embedded in the first signal, will be messages from the people of Earth.

If you want to be part of the project and be a “beamer” you can currently sign up at the Lone Signal website –which currently doesn’t have much information. But on June 18th their public site will go live and ‘beamers will be able to submit messages as well as:

• Share Beams / Track Beams – Once signed in, users can see how far their beam has traveled from Earth as well as share it with the beaming community.

• Dedicate Beams – Parents, friends and loved ones can dedicate a beam to others.

• Explore – The Explore section gives beamers current data on the Lone Signal beam, who is sending messages, from where on Earth, overall stats, etc.

• Blog / Twitter – Via their blog and Twitter, the Lone Signal science team and other contributors will be posting opinion articles on associated topics of interest as well as sharing the latest science news and updates.

One you submit your “beam” you’ll be able to “echo” it on your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

After a user sends their initial free message, Lone Signal will be offering paid credit packages for purchase that allow users to transmit and share longer messages as well as images using credits in the following USD price structure:
• $0.99 buys 4 credits.
• $4.99 buys 40 credits.
• $19.99 buys 400 credits.
• $99.99 buys 4000 credits.

Following the initial free message, each subsequent text-based message costs 1 credit. Image-based messages cost 3 credits.

The team said that each message will be sent as an individual packet of information and won’t be bunched with other messages.

Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/102844/lone-signal-first-continous-message-beacon-to-find-and-say-hello-to-an-extraterrestrial-civilization/#ixzz2W1iVoZPq

http://youtu.be/kBgqc0auCBQ

Gliese 526 is 17.6 light years away so at best we can expect an answer in about 35 years, two and a half  months from now, and even the best we could hope for is a simple signal possibly just re-transmission of the signal we sent on a different frequency to prove it is not an echo of some sort.

When the invasion comes, we will know who to blame.

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Henry Paterson
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