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Arecibo message
The Arecibo message is an interstellar radio message carrying basic information about humanity and Earth that was sent to the globular cluster Messier 13 (M13) in 1974. It was meant as a demonstration of human technological achievement rather than a real attempt to enter into a conversation with extraterrestrials.
The message was broadcast into space a single time via frequency-modulated radio waves at a ceremony to mark the remodeling of the Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico on 16 November 1974. The message was aimed at the current location of M13, about 25,000 light years from Earth, because M13 was a large and relatively close collection of stars that was available in the sky at the time and place of the ceremony. When correctly translated into graphics, characters, and spaces, the 1,679 bits of data contained within the message form the image shown here.
The content of the Arecibo message was designed by a group of Cornell University and Arecibo scientists: Frank Drake, formulator of the Drake equation, James C. G. Walker, Linda M. French, and Richard Isaacman. Carl Sagan and others also contributed. The message was meant more as a demonstration of human technological achievement than a serious attempt to enter into a conversation with possible extraterrestrials. As globular cluster M13, at which the message was aimed, is more than 25,000 light-years from Earth, the message, traveling at the speed of light, will take at least 25,000 years to arrive there. By that time, the core of M13 will no longer be in precisely the same location because of the orbit of the star cluster around the Galactic Center. Even so, the proper motion of M13 is small, so the message will still arrive near the center of the cluster.
The message consists of seven parts that encode the following (from the top down in the image):
The entire message consisted of 1,679 binary digits, approximately 210 bytes, transmitted at a frequency of 2,380 MHz and modulated by shifting the frequency by 10 Hz, with a power of 450 kW. The "ones" and "zeros" were transmitted by frequency shifting at the rate of 10 bits per second. The total broadcast was less than three minutes.
The number 1,679 was chosen because it is a semiprime (the product of two prime numbers), to be arranged rectangularly as 73 rows by 23 columns. The alternative arrangement, 23 rows by 73 columns, produces an unintelligible set of characters.
The message as a binary string is included below. Note that the choice of 1 representing higher frequency and 0 representing lower frequency is entirely arbitrary and the line breaks after every 23 bits are only included to allow for some ease in human readability.
The numbers from 1 to 10 appear in binary format, to be read from the top down. The bottom row contains markers which indicate the column from which the binary code for each number is intended to begin.
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Arecibo message AI simulator
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Arecibo message
The Arecibo message is an interstellar radio message carrying basic information about humanity and Earth that was sent to the globular cluster Messier 13 (M13) in 1974. It was meant as a demonstration of human technological achievement rather than a real attempt to enter into a conversation with extraterrestrials.
The message was broadcast into space a single time via frequency-modulated radio waves at a ceremony to mark the remodeling of the Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico on 16 November 1974. The message was aimed at the current location of M13, about 25,000 light years from Earth, because M13 was a large and relatively close collection of stars that was available in the sky at the time and place of the ceremony. When correctly translated into graphics, characters, and spaces, the 1,679 bits of data contained within the message form the image shown here.
The content of the Arecibo message was designed by a group of Cornell University and Arecibo scientists: Frank Drake, formulator of the Drake equation, James C. G. Walker, Linda M. French, and Richard Isaacman. Carl Sagan and others also contributed. The message was meant more as a demonstration of human technological achievement than a serious attempt to enter into a conversation with possible extraterrestrials. As globular cluster M13, at which the message was aimed, is more than 25,000 light-years from Earth, the message, traveling at the speed of light, will take at least 25,000 years to arrive there. By that time, the core of M13 will no longer be in precisely the same location because of the orbit of the star cluster around the Galactic Center. Even so, the proper motion of M13 is small, so the message will still arrive near the center of the cluster.
The message consists of seven parts that encode the following (from the top down in the image):
The entire message consisted of 1,679 binary digits, approximately 210 bytes, transmitted at a frequency of 2,380 MHz and modulated by shifting the frequency by 10 Hz, with a power of 450 kW. The "ones" and "zeros" were transmitted by frequency shifting at the rate of 10 bits per second. The total broadcast was less than three minutes.
The number 1,679 was chosen because it is a semiprime (the product of two prime numbers), to be arranged rectangularly as 73 rows by 23 columns. The alternative arrangement, 23 rows by 73 columns, produces an unintelligible set of characters.
The message as a binary string is included below. Note that the choice of 1 representing higher frequency and 0 representing lower frequency is entirely arbitrary and the line breaks after every 23 bits are only included to allow for some ease in human readability.
The numbers from 1 to 10 appear in binary format, to be read from the top down. The bottom row contains markers which indicate the column from which the binary code for each number is intended to begin.