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Concept
Arecibo message
Summary
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 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 Frank Drake, then at Cornell University and creator of the Drake equation, who wrote the message with help from Carl Sagan and others. 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.
Official source
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