In 1977, as part of the Voyager space probe program, NASA chartered scientist Carl Sagan and a blue-ribbon panel to put together a recording of sounds, music, and languages to represent the people and other life on Earth. Imprinted on a disc of gold, the recordings were accompanied by pictographs depicting our planet’s location, solar system, instructions on how to play the recording, and even drawings of a man and woman with hands raised in greeting. The disc was attached to the Voyager 1 probe, which left our solar system in 1990, will take 40,000 years to reach the closest star system that could host inhabited planets. Carl Sagan wrote about the disc’s intent:
“The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced spacefaring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet.”
Now, thirty-two years later, humanity once again reaches out into the cold black void of interstellar space and calls out to see if anyone is there…only this time in the form of Twitter. “Hello From Earth.net” is a project from the Australian science magazine COSMOS as part of the Australian government’s National Science Week. They’ve arranged to beam a radio transmission through the auspices of NASA and the Deep Space Communication Complex in Canberra at a planet that was discovered orbiting the star Gliese 581, one of the 100 stars closest to our solar system. The transmission will consist entirely of text messages submitted by the public, each one 160 characters in length (20 characters more than you can enter in a Twitter message).
Hello From Earth is accepting messages until 0700 GMT, Monday August 24, so you have a couple of weeks to tweet to the stars, if you are so inclined.
What are the People Of Earth saying to our far-flung brethren? Here are a few of the most popular submissions so far:
- Hi There: Sorry about the Outer Limits; hope you enjoyed I Love Lucy. Have you got all our missing socks? Love, Earth
Fred Mason
Roberts Creek, Australia- How come you never call anymore? and also, I tried adding you on facebook many times but had no response. If its about the drinking…I can change
Jono
Melbourne, Australia- hereby volunteer for the first inter-species breeding program. HELLO LADIES! Lets get to know each other over a nice glass of blue milk.
matt jivin
new york, United States
That humming sound you hear off in the distance is Carl Sagan spinning in his grave, billions and billions of times per second.
