Bourbon, Horses and Aliens: Here's Why Kentucky Scientists Send a Coded Message to a Galaxy 40 Light Years Away
Scientists from Kentucky sent an invitation to aliens who may live in a galaxy 40 light years away.
Kentucky: In a unique move, a group of scientists sent a message to another solar system about 40 light-years away, hoping to make contact and invite aliens to Earth. Scientists in Lexington worked with a VisitLex advertising team to send a coded infrared laser message to TRAPPIST-1, a large star with seven exoplanets thought to be potentially hospitable to life. However, the message is expected to reach the star within approximately 38 years and 262 days, as the distance between Earth and the star is 235 trillion miles. The countdown to the message can also be viewed live on the VisitLex website. The duration of the message reaching the star system may seem very long to us, but scientists see this as to their advantage.
“We're focusing on the TRAPPIST-1 system because we might get an answer in someone's lifetime if someone is watching,” the New York Post quoted Dr. Robert Lodder, professor of computer engineering at the University of Kentucky with many credentials in astrochemistry. , astrobiology and SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Life) programs.
The message, described by VisitLex as “the world's first interstellar tourism campaign,” involved a collaboration between linguists, scientists and even science fiction experts from Kentucky to deliver the broadcast to the distant star.
The message
The message sent to TRAPPIST-1 is an encrypted bitmap or simple pixel-plotted image that contains crucial information about our blue planet, such as prime numbers, the periodic elements that are the building blocks of life, and representations of people and horses .
The message also includes molecular structures of the elements found in Lexington's beloved export, Bourbon, “because Lexington is fun,” VisitLex noted.
It also featured a serene scene of the rolling hills of Kentucky, the clear message “Visit Lexington” in plain English, and a recording of Lexington blues master Tee Dee Young passionately playing his electric guitar.
“Why not a positive, friendly message of all the things we've beamed into space?” The New York Post quoted University of Kentucky linguistics professor Dr. Brenna Byrd.
Federal aviation approval
Notably, according to VisitLex, the broadcast of the message was approved by the Federal Aviation Administration. It is the first time that a travel brochure has been launched into space towards a star.
Similarity to Voyager mission messages
It is worth noting that the Voyager space probe, which was launched in 1977, also contained identical gold gramophone records. The purpose of sending these records into space was to give aliens who might encounter them an idea of what life looks and sounds like on our blue planet.
Currently, Voyager I, which is about 15 billion miles away (about 0.006% of the way to TRAPPIST), has gone deeper into space than any other man-made object.
However, this is not the first time a message has been sent into space. In 1974, the Arecibo message was broadcast into space from the Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico. Similar to the message sent from Kentucky, the Arecibo message used a pixel-based format to convey humanity's number system, symbols representing local elements, images of our DNA strands, a map of our solar system, and a illustration of what people look like. among other details.
That message was sent to the globular star cluster Messier 13, which is about 25,000 light-years away, and will take several years to reach.