Astronomers are planning to send radio messages to aliens through space to make our presence and location known in space.
The project is called Active SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and for now it is just a proposal. If it is green lighted, astronomers will transmit powerful radio messages into space that will possibly reach habitable regions.
Many have expressed concern about how Active SETI will reveal the Earth’s location and expose our planet to other civilizations but a chief scientists at the SETI Institute in California said that these radio messages to aliens will not result in an alien invasion.
Astronomers have been picking up radio waves from outer space and analyzed then since 1960, but nothing tangible ever came out of that. This new plan to send radio messages intends to switch things up and make us more available.
Director of the Interstellar Message Composition program, Doctor Douglas A. Vakoch, revealed that the reality is that any civilization who can travel through space can already pick us Earth’s TV and radio signals. These signals have been leaking into space ever since man created them, so Active SETI doesn’t pose any additional risk.
The reason behind Active SETI was explained by Vakoch:
If we can come to understand the messages of an independently evolved civilization, if we can get a glimpse into how they experience their worlds, we will have a mirror to hold up to ourselves, giving us a deeper appreciation of what makes us distinctively human.
Vakoch continued to say that people worry that if intelligent alien life is discovered, then people would no longer be as unique as they believe they are. Also, the sci-fi literature and movies have influenced people’s view of a potential confrontation between humans and aliens, which is why Active SETI has met so much criticism.
Professor Stephen Hawking, renowned physicist, has warned that sending radio messages to alien civilizations could cause us to suffer the same fate as Native Americans when North America was colonized.
Russians scientists did something similar to Active SETI in May 1999. The Yevpatoria RT-70 radio telescope sent one of the first interstellar radio messages to nearby stars. The messages were deliberate and they were dubbed Cosmic Call 1. Unfortunately, there was no response.
Image Source: Huffington Post