Message To Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence
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Active SETI (Active Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) are attempts to send messages to intelligent extraterrestrial life. Active SETI messages are predominantly sent in the form of radio signals. Physical messages like that of the Pioneer plaque may also be considered an active SETI message. Active SETI is also known as METI (Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). Whether humans should engage in Active SETI is controversial due to concerns about potential impacts of extraterrestrial contact, sparking a vigorous policy debate.


History

'Active SETI' was a term as early as 2005, though some decades after the term SETI. The term METI was coined in 2006 by Russian scientist Alexander Zaitsev, who proposed a subtle distinction between Active SETI and METI: Concern over METI was raised by the science journal ''Nature'' in an editorial in October 2006, which commented on a recent meeting of the
International Academy of Astronautics The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) is a Paris-based non-government association for the field of astronautics. It was founded in Stockholm, Sweden) on August 16, 1960, by Dr. Theodore von Kármán. It was recognised by the United Nation ...
SETI study group. The editor said, "It is not obvious that all extraterrestrial civilizations will be benign, or that contact with even a benign one would not have serious repercussions". In the same year, astronomer and science fiction author
David Brin Glen David Brin (born October 6, 1950) is an American science fiction author. He has won the Hugo Award, Hugo,
expressed similar concerns. In 2013 Brin amended his initial article based on the recent developments in METI. In 2010, Douglas A. Vakoch from
SETI Institute The SETI Institute is a not-for-profit research organization incorporated in 1984 whose mission is to explore, understand, and explain the origin and nature of life in the universe, and to use this knowledge to inspire and guide present and futu ...
, addressed concerns about the validity of Active SETI alone as an experimental science by proposing the integration of Active SETI and Passive SETI programs to engage in a clearly articulated, ongoing, and evolving set of experiments to test various versions of the
Zoo hypothesis The zoo hypothesis speculates on the assumed behavior and existence of technologically advanced extraterrestrial life and the reasons they refrain from contacting Earth. It is one of many theoretical explanations for the Fermi paradox. The hypot ...
, including specific dates at which a first response to messages sent to particular stars could be expected. On 13 February 2015, scientists including
Douglas Vakoch Douglas A. Vakoch ( ; born June 16, 1961) is an American astrobiologist, search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) researcher, psychologist, and president of METI International, a nonprofit research and educational organization devoted to ...
,
David Grinspoon David H. Grinspoon (born 1959) is an American astrobiologist. He is the Senior Scientist for Astrobiology Strategy at NASA and was the former inaugural Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology for 2012–2013. His rese ...
,
Seth Shostak Seth Shostak (born July 20, 1943) is an American astronomer and author, and is currently the senior astronomer for the SETI Institute. Shostak co-hosts the weekly radio show/podcast '' Big Picture Science'', has played himself numerous times in ...
, and
David Brin Glen David Brin (born October 6, 1950) is an American science fiction author. He has won the Hugo Award, Hugo,
at an annual meeting of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...
discussed Active SETI, and whether transmitting a message to possible intelligent
extraterrestrials Extraterrestrial life, or alien life (colloquially, aliens), is life that originates from another world rather than on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been scientifically conclusively detected. Such life might range from simple forms ...
in the
Cosmos The cosmos (, ; ) is an alternative name for the universe or its nature or order. Usage of the word ''cosmos'' implies viewing the universe as a complex and orderly system or entity. The cosmos is studied in cosmologya broad discipline covering ...
was a good idea. That same week, a statement was released, signed by many in the SETI community including
Berkeley SETI Research Center The Berkeley SETI Research Center (BSRC) conducts experiments searching for optical and electromagnetic transmissions from intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations.frequency-shift keying Frequency-shift keying (FSK) is a frequency modulation scheme in which digital information is encoded on a carrier signal by periodically shifting the frequency of the carrier between several discrete frequencies. The technology is used fo ...
modulation scheme was used, most of the time the signal was on the “0” frequency. In addition, “0” tended to be sent in long stretches, which appeared as white lines in the message.


Realized projects

The below projects have targeted stars between 17 and 69 light-years from the Earth. The exception is the
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 in 1974. It was meant as a demonstration of human technological achievement, rather than ...
, which targeted
globular cluster M13 Messier 13, or M13 (also designated NGC 6205 and sometimes called the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, the Hercules Globular Cluster, or the Great Hercules Cluster), is a globular cluster of several hundred thousand stars in the constellation ...
, approximately 24,000 light-years away. The first interstellar message to reach its destination was the Altair (Morimoto - Hirabayashi) Message, which likely reached its target in 1999. * The Morse Message (1962) *
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 in 1974. It was meant as a demonstration of human technological achievement, rather than ...
(1974) *
Cosmic Call Cosmic Call was the name of two sets of interstellar radio messages that were sent from RT-70 in Yevpatoria, Ukraine in 1999 (Cosmic Call 1) and 2003 (Cosmic Call 2) to various nearby stars. The messages were designed with noise-resistant form ...
1 (1999) * Teen Age Message (2001) *
Cosmic Call Cosmic Call was the name of two sets of interstellar radio messages that were sent from RT-70 in Yevpatoria, Ukraine in 1999 (Cosmic Call 1) and 2003 (Cosmic Call 2) to various nearby stars. The messages were designed with noise-resistant form ...
2 (2003) *
Across the Universe "Across the Universe" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. It was written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song first appeared on the 1969 various artists' charity compilation album ''No One's Gonna Change Our W ...
(2008)
Hello from Earth
(2009) *
Wow! WideOpenWest, Inc. ( doing business as WOW!) is the eighth largest cable operator in the United States with their network passing 1.9 million homes and businesses. The company offers landline telephone, cable television, and broadband Interne ...
Reply (2012) *
Lone Signal Lone Signal was a crowdfunded active SETI project designed to send interstellar messages from Earth to a possible extraterrestrial civilization. Founded by businessman Pierre Fabre and supported by several entrepreneurs, Lone Signal was based at ...
(2013) * A Simple Response to an Elemental Message (2016) The choice of targets, transmission rate, and encoding may effect how likely a message will be received and interpreted by extraterrestrial intelligence. "Across the Universe" and " A Simple Response to an Elemental Message" were sent to Polaris, which is 431 light years distant from us and whose planetary system, even if it exists, may not be suited for life, because it is a supergiant star, spectral type F7Ib which is only 70 million years old. In addition, both transmission rates were very high, about 128 kbit/s, for such moderate transmitter power (about 18 kW). The main defect of the "Hello From Earth" is an insufficient scientific and technical justification, since no famous
SETI Seti or SETI may refer to: Astrobiology * SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. ** SETI Institute, an astronomical research organization *** SETIcon, a former convention organized by the SETI Institute ** Berkeley SETI Research Cent ...
scientist made statements with validation of HFE's design. As it follows fro

''"After the final message was collected on Monday 24 August 2009, messages were exported as a text file and sent to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, where they were encoded into binary, packaged and tested before transmission"'', but nobody explained why he hopes that such encoded and packaged text will be understood and conceived by possible extraterrestrials.


Transmissions

Below is a table of messages sent and target/destination stars, ordered chronologically by date of sending:


Controversy

Whether or not to conduct Active SETI, as well as the tone of any message, is a highly controversial topic. Active SETI has primarily been criticized due to the perceived risk of revealing the location of the Earth to alien civilizations, without some process of prior international consultation. That is, Active SETI does not meet the criteria for informed consent in a mass experiment involving human subjects and, potentially, nonhuman sentient subjects. Active SETI is discussed in terms of the ethics of
space policy Space policy is the political decision-making process for, and application of, public policy of a state (or association of states) regarding spaceflight and uses of outer space, both for civilian (scientific and commercial) and military purposes ...
. Issues include whether to send belligerent versus defensive messages,
cosmopolitanism Cosmopolitanism is the idea that all human beings are members of a single community. Its adherents are known as cosmopolitan or cosmopolite. Cosmopolitanism is both prescriptive and aspirational, believing humans can and should be " world citizen ...
, communicative burden, consensus, messaging content, proscriptions on premature messaging, responsibility, and shared values, with concerns that even if successful, humanity could be reduced to a cargo cult.
David Brin Glen David Brin (born October 6, 1950) is an American science fiction author. He has won the Hugo Award, Hugo,
also urged for an extensive international consultation before any METI activities and has debunked key rationalizations for active SETI (METI), such as the "barn door" argument (unintentional "leaked signals" were millions-fold weaker than intentional METI signals), ignoring/dismissing the
precautionary principle The precautionary principle (or precautionary approach) is a broad epistemological, philosophical and legal approach to innovations with potential for causing harm when extensive scientific knowledge on the matter is lacking. It emphasizes cautio ...
(that requires taking extreme precaution e.g. handling extraterrestrial samples even without any known example of risks), and treating METI as being prayer-like which disregards the issue of informed consent from other people. Notable among METI's critics was
Stephen Hawking Stephen William Hawking (8January 194214March 2018) was an English theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between ...
. Hawking, who in his book ''
A Brief History of Time ''A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes'' is a book on cosmology by the physicist Stephen Hawking, first published in 1988. Hawking writes in non-technical terms about the structure, origin, development and eventual fate of ...
'' suggests that "alerting" extraterrestrial intelligences to our existence is foolhardy, citing humankind's history of treating its own kind harshly in meetings of civilizations with a significant technology gap, e.g., the extermination of
Tasmanian aborigines The Aboriginal Tasmanians (palawa kani: ''Palawa'' or ''Pakana'') are the Aboriginal people of the Australian island of Tasmania, located south of the mainland. At the time of European contact, Aboriginal Tasmanians were divided into a numb ...
. He suggested, in view of this history, that we "lay low". Scientist and science fiction author
David Brin Glen David Brin (born October 6, 1950) is an American science fiction author. He has won the Hugo Award, Hugo,
expressed similar concerns. Similarly,
Liu Cixin Liu Cixin (, pronounced ; born 23 June 1963) is a Chinese computer engineer and science fiction writer. In English translations of his works, his name is given as Cixin Liu. He is sometimes called "''Da'' Liu" ("Big Liu") by his fellow sc ...
's trilogy of novels The Three Body Problem highlights the potential dangers of METI. However, some scientists consider these fears about the dangers of METI as panic and irrational superstition; Russian and Soviet radio engineer and astronomer Alexander L. Zaitsev has argued against these concerns. Zaitsev argues that we should consider the risks of not attempting to contact extraterrestrial civilizations, since the knowledge and wisdom an ETI could impart to us would save us from humanity's self-destructive tendencies. Similarly, in a March 2015 essay astronomer
Seth Shostak Seth Shostak (born July 20, 1943) is an American astronomer and author, and is currently the senior astronomer for the SETI Institute. Shostak co-hosts the weekly radio show/podcast '' Big Picture Science'', has played himself numerous times in ...
considered the risk and ended by stressing that any danger was hypothetical and that humanity would better off risk contact than "endlessly tremble at the sight of the stars". Astronomer
Jill Tarter Jill Cornell Tarter (born January 16, 1944) is an American astronomer best known for her work on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Tarter is the former director of the Center for SETI Research, holding the Bernard M. Oliver Ch ...
also disagrees with Hawking, arguing that aliens developed and long-lived enough to communicate and travel across interstellar distances would have evolved a cooperative and less violent intelligence. She however thinks it is too soon for humans to attempt active SETI and that humans should be more advanced technologically first but keep listening in the meantime. To lend a quantitative basis to discussions of the risks of transmitting deliberate messages from Earth, the SETI Permanent Study Group of the International Academy of Astronautics adopted in 2007 a new analytical tool, the San Marino Scale. Developed by Prof. Ivan Almar and Prof.
H. Paul Shuch H. Paul Shuch (born May 23, 1946) is an American scientist and engineer who has coordinated radio amateurs to help in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Shuch, an aerospace engineer, microwave technologist, and radio amateur ca ...
, the San Marino Scale evaluates the significance of transmissions from Earth as a function of signal intensity and information content. Its adoption suggests that not all such transmissions are created equal, thus each must be evaluated separately before establishing a blanket international policy regarding Active SETI. In 2012, Jacob Haqq-Misra, Michael Busch, Sanjoy Som, and Seth Baum argued that while the benefits of radio communication on Earth likely outweigh the potential harms of detection by extraterrestrial watchers, the uncertainty regarding the outcome of contact with extraterrestrial beings creates difficulty in assessing whether or not to engage in long-term and large-scale METI. In 2015, in the context of the
Zoo Hypothesis The zoo hypothesis speculates on the assumed behavior and existence of technologically advanced extraterrestrial life and the reasons they refrain from contacting Earth. It is one of many theoretical explanations for the Fermi paradox. The hypot ...
, biologist
João Pedro de Magalhães João is a given name of Portuguese origin. It is equivalent to the given name John. The diminutive is Joãozinho and the feminine is Joana. It is widespread in Portuguese-speaking countries. Notable people with the name are enumerated in the s ...
proposed transmitting an invitation message to any extraterrestrial intelligences watching us already and inviting them to respond, arguing this would not put us in any more danger than we are already if the
Zoo Hypothesis The zoo hypothesis speculates on the assumed behavior and existence of technologically advanced extraterrestrial life and the reasons they refrain from contacting Earth. It is one of many theoretical explanations for the Fermi paradox. The hypot ...
is correct.
Douglas Vakoch Douglas A. Vakoch ( ; born June 16, 1961) is an American astrobiologist, search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) researcher, psychologist, and president of METI International, a nonprofit research and educational organization devoted to ...
, president of
METI Meti is a town in south-western Ethiopia, located in Godere woreda of the Gambela Region The Gambela Region, also spelled Gambella, and officially the Gambela Peoples' Region (), is a regional state in western Ethiopia. Previously known as ...
, argues that passive SETI itself is already an endorsement of active SETI, since "If we detect a signal from aliens through a SETI program, there's no way to prevent a cacophony of responses from Earth." In the context of potentially detected extraterrestrial activity on Earth, physicist
Mark Buchanan Mark Buchanan (born October 31, 1961, in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American outreach physicist and author. He was formerly an editor with the international journal of science ''Nature'', and the popular science magazine ''New Scientist''. He has been ...
argued that humanity needs to determine whether it would be safe or wise to attempt to communicate with extraterrestrials and work on ways to handle such attempts in an organized manner.


Beacon proposals

One proposal for a 10 billion watt interstellar SETI beacon was dismissed by Robert A. Freitas Jr. as being infeasible for a pre-Type I civilization, such as humanity, on the
Kardashev scale The Kardashev scale () is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technology, technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is capable of harnessing and using. The measure was proposed by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev i ...
. However, this 1980s technical argument assumes omni-directional beacons, which may not be the best way to proceed on many technical grounds. Advances in consumer electronics have made possible transmitters that simultaneously transmit many narrow beams, covering the million or so nearest stars but not the spaces between. This multibeam approach can reduce the power and cost to levels that are reasonable with early 21st century Earth technology. Once civilizations have discovered each other's locations, the energy requirements for maintaining contact and exchanging information can be significantly reduced through the use of highly directional transmission technologies. To this end, a 2018 study estimated a 1-2 megawatt infrared laser focused through a 30-45 meter telescope could be seen from about 20,000 light years away.


See also

*
Communication with extraterrestrial intelligence The communication with extraterrestrial intelligence (CETI) is a branch of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) that focuses on composing and deciphering interstellar messages that theoretically could be understood by another techn ...
*
Dark forest hypothesis The dark forest hypothesis is the conjecture that many alien civilizations exist throughout the universe, but they are both silent and hostile, maintaining their undetectability for fear of being destroyed by another hostile and undetected civi ...
, the idea that planetary civilizations remain silent to avoid the possibility of contact with potentially aggressive worlds *
Detecting Earth from distant star-based systems There are several methods currently used by astronomers to detect distant exoplanets from Earth. Theoretically, some of these methods can be used to detect Earth as an exoplanet from distant star systems. History In June 2021, astronomers ident ...
* * *
SETI@home SETI@home ("SETI at home") is a project of the Berkeley SETI Research Center to analyze radio signals with the aim of Search for extraterrestrial intelligence, searching for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. Until March 2020, it was run ...
*
Wow! signal The Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal detected on August 15, 1977, by Ohio State University's Big Ear radio telescope in the United States, then used to support the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The signal appeare ...


References


External links


Interstellar Radio Messages

ActiveSETI.org

active-seti.info





Should We Shout Into the Darkness?

Error Correction Schemes In Active SETI

The Evpatoria Messages


*
The Pros and Cons of METI from Centauri Dreams
*
Lone Signal
{{DEFAULTSORT:Active Seti * * Technology in society