Pioneer Plaque
There have been a number of attempts to send messages to potential extraterrestrial intelligent life forms that may exist in cosmos. One of the most famous interstellar messages is the Pioneer plaque that was attached to the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecrafts that were launched in 1972 and 1973 respectively.
The plaque was designed by Carl Sagan and Frank Drake and for any aliens to figure out the content and message on the plaque; they would need to be pretty intelligent. I am quite sure that it would be classified as a D5 mystery in geocaching terms. A quick rundown of the content tells us the following:
At the top left of the plaque are two hydrogen atoms in a hyperfine transition, a change in energy state with a wavelength of 21.1 centimeters and a frequency of 1420.405752 MHz (or 7.04024183647e-10 seconds). Beyond the fact that hydrogen is the most common element in universe, this symbol also acts as measurement units for the rest of the plaque.
The radial pattern below the atoms, are representation of pulsars and their relative position to the sun. Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars whose electromagnetic radiation is observed in regular intervals, called periods. The ticks on the lines are binary numbers that represents the periods of the pulsars. The length of each line represents its distance to the sun. So once the recipient has figured out the binary numbers and realized that the values should be divided by the frequency unit mentioned above, they will get the pulsar periods and should then be able to uniquely identify the pulsars and through the magic of trigonometry be able to find and navigate to our solar system. Sagan mentioned in the documentation of the plaque that the pulsars used (clockwise from the horizontal line) were J1731-4744, J1456-6843, J1243-6423, J0835-4510, J0953+0755, J0826+2637, J0534+2200, J0528+2200, J0332+5434, J2219+4754, J2018+2839, J1935+1616, J1932+1059, J1645-0317.
Below the pulsars is a representation of the planets in our solar system. Each planet has a binary number attached representing its relative distance to the sun. Bizarrely, rather than using the established measurement units from the hydrogen atom, the recipient in this case must realize that all distances are expressed in units of 1/10 of Mercury’s orbit. That alone would make it a D5 mystery in my book. The sailing boat that is cruising in between planets is a representation of the Pioneer spacecraft showing that it left earth and its path past Jupiter and out of the solar system.
Two human beings are depicted on the plaque, and the fact that they were naked apparently caused some controversy at the time. To the right of the woman is another binary number (8) representing her height. If the recipient understands that the value should be multiplied by the wavelength unit, they will conclude that the woman is roughly 168 (8 x 21) centimeters tall. If however the aliens think that Mercury’s orbit is once again of use, they will believe that the woman is more that 46 million kilometers tall which might very well explain why they have not come to visit us.
Behind the human beings is a silhouette of the Pioneer spacecraft in the same scale as the humans. So if the aliens missed any other part of the message, they can at least deduce the size of human beings from the spacecraft that they have confiscated along with the plaque.
Carl Sagan wrote (repeatedly) in his notes that the information on the plaque should be fairly obvious to any recipients in space and he thought that the images of the two humans were the mysterious part of the message. Did I mention that Carl Sagan was an advocate for the legalization of certain drugs? I think that it is rather likely that Sagan was a bit Lucy in the sky when he came up with the Pioneer plaque if you ask me.
Arecibo message
I
n 1974, Carl Sagan together with Frank Drake felt that it was once again time to communicate with extraterrestrials in our midst. This time, frequency modulated radio waves were broadcasted from the Arecibo Radio Telescope. It was aimed at the star cluster M13 around 25 000 light years away. The Atari ... sorry ... Arecibo message consisted of 1679 binary digits (around 210 bytes) and was arranged as a rectangular with 73 rows and 23 columns and forms the image presented to the right.
The message consisted of seven parts with the following information:
The white dots at the top are numbers (1-10) in binary format. See if you can make sense of the numbers without googling. It is not completely intuitive even if you know binary code.
The purple stuff below are atomic numbers of hydrogen (H), carbon (C), nitrogen (N), oxygen (O) and phosphorus (P); the components of DNA.
The green section is molecular formulas for the sugars and bases in the nucleotides of DNA.
Then we have a DNA double helix (in blue) with a vertical bar (white) that represents the number of nucleotides.
The most mysterious part of the message, to follow Sagan’s thoughts on the Pioneer plaque, is probably the Spiderman (red) in the center of the image. The elements to the left indicate the average height of humans and the white stuff to the right depicts the earth’s human population at the time (4.3 billion).
The yellow part is a simplified repeat from the Pioneer plaque displaying the planets in our solar system. The earth is slightly ascended above the other planets to guide the aliens if they want to visit us. The red dude is also positioned directly above earth to make the point even more obvious.
The bottom section represents the Arecibo Telescope with some measurements of the telescope.
Sagan and Drake must have been convinced that any intercepting aliens would be friendly minded (unlike most aliens in Hollywood movies). Why else would you communicate to a foreign species our chemical composition, our size and population? Since the graphics feels rather dated now (in 2012), imagine how primitive any intercepting aliens will find it when it reaches its destination some 24 962 years from now.
Voyager golden record
In 1977, it was once again time for NASA to launch spacecrafts into interstellar space in the form of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. This time, they wanted to use state of the art technology and recorded The Voyager Golden Record, containing audio and images to portray the life and culture on Earth. Carl Sagan was once again given the task to coordinate and design the message.
The Golden Record contains 116 images with subjects ranging from mathematical and physical quantities, the solar system, DNA, human anatomy and reproduction, animals, landscape and architecture. The record also contains audio clips, most notably a segment called “The Sounds of Earth” which is a compilation of everything from animals, volcanoes, trains, heartbeats, rain and the sound of a kiss. Some of it is rather fascinating and some of it is very strange, even for someone like me who have spent my entire life on planet Earth. I recommend listing to some of it but I will be honest and say that it will not help you to find this cache. Another audio segment contains music with an emphasis on classical music from Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, etc. The record also contains spoken greetings in 55 different languages. Most greetings are along the lines of “we wish you well”, “we want friendship”, “peace everywhere”, etc. The Swedish representative says “Hälsningar från en dataprogrammerare …” (“Greetings from a computer programmer”), so we can be pretty sure that the aliens will not make Sweden its first stop when they arrive. This site contains a good presentation of the images and audio on the Golden Record.
The cover of the golden record contains a number of symbols depicted in the image above. The main purpose of the symbols is to provide instructions to the recipients on how to listen to the audio and how to view the images. The cover also repeats the pulsar map and the hydrogen atoms from the Pioneer plaque.
Time for a new message
Since the Voyager program, NASA has been relatively quiet in terms of sending messages to extraterrestrial life forms and while there have been a few other organizations and individuals who have broadcasted messages to potential inhabitants in space, I feel that it is time for another significant statement from planet Earth and this time I think it is time to introduce the aliens to Geocaching.
I have composed a new plaque along the lines of the Pioneer plaque but with some significant alterations. However, for consistency, I have included the hydrogen atoms and a pulsar map since they were included on both the Pioneer plaque and the Golden Record and I want any recipients to recognize the origin of the message. One important difference compared to the Pioneer plaque is that I regard the values from the hydrogen atoms as constants rather than units.
I decided to skip the planets in our solar system since I reckon it’s been done. Plus, I do not even know where to begin to explain to the aliens that Pluto is no longer a planet. Instead, I have decided to introduce them to some of the great ball sports that we have on our planet.
Then there is a link to an informative message about our universe. On the Golden Record, they included messages from the US President, Jimmy Carter, and the UN Secretary General. I have chosen representatives who I think have had a greater impact on life (at least mine).
The images on the Golden Record aimed to show the diversity of our planet. I have tried to narrow it down a little bit and tried to focus on things that are important to a lot of people on this planet. It is in no way all inclusive and it is probably slightly biased to a western civilization.
As with the Pioneer plaque, there is a man and a woman depicted but this time they are suitably dressed to avoid the controversy regarding nudity. The man is showing two thumbs up, the universal sign that everything is fine. The woman is holding a miniature astronaut since I figured that if the aliens have encountered any human beings in the past it would most likely have been in the shape of astronauts, hence the recognition factor.
I liked the idea on the Golden Record of exposing potential aliens to some of the great music that has been composed on this planet. I do like the classical music on the Golden Record but I feel that this time around it might be appropriate to present some of the more contemporary music that has been recorded over the last few decades. I thought of recording it but then I figured that if I just give them the titles, they can pick it up themselves. I mean, given the current valuation of the Apple share I am assuming that iTunes Store has become big intergalactically by now. Joy Division’s ‘Unknown Pleasure’ merits inclusion for two reasons. Firstly, it is a great album, and secondly, the cover displays pulses from the first pulsar that was discovered (CP 1919).
And in the midst of all of this, there are some clues to help aliens and earthlings find the hidden cache.
The plaque is attached to my spacecraft which was launched from the location of the cache on 15 September 2012 09:00:00 UT. All relevant observations were recorded simultaneously with the launch.
Carl Sagan claimed that the information given on the Pioneer plaque and the Golden Record would be enough for any extraterrestrials to locate our solar system with a margin of error of a few light years. The GeoChecker for this cache isn’t quite that permissive but it will allow some deviation from GZ. After all, this isn’t science … oh, wait … ah … you know what I mean.
At this point you are probably thinking; what about atmospheric refraction, precession, relativistic deflection, nutation and aberration of light?!? “Do I need to adjust for all these factors?” Despite all assumptions that the aliens are super smart, I do not believe that they are aware of all these factors so you do not need to be either and should not adjust for them.
You may potentially have a head start of a few billion years in the FTF-race against the aliens but if they are as smart as Sagan appeared to believe you do not want to waste time.
