About 40 years ago, Japanese astronomers sent a message to star Altair, hoping for an alien response. A team at the University of Hyogo aims to prove that aliens exist by using a radio telescope to receive a reply from nearby planets. August 22 is anticipated as the response date, with uncertainties about its likelihood.
Astronomers Sent 13 Images Depicting Earth's Evolution
Masaki Morimoto and Hisashi Hirabayashi were the Japanese astronomers who transmitted the initial radio signal from Stanford on August 15, 1983. This transmission contained 13 drawings.
Professor Morimoto, regarded as a source of motivation for emerging members of Japan's nascent radio astronomy field, passed away in 2010. Now, a skilled University of Hyogo team has the responsibility of attentively monitoring for anomalous radio signals over about sixty minutes.
The images, translated into radio signals resembling email data, portray Earth's life progression, including single-celled organisms, fish, a lizard, an ape, and a human family. The rudimentary illustrations also feature a fish transitioning from water to land, a pivotal stage in human evolution, a waving human, and curiously, the word 'toast'.
After 40 years, Shinya Narusawa's team at the University of Hyogo is using a 64-meter-wide antenna named Usuda Deep Space Center in Saku to potentially catch an alien response. The anticipated date for a reply is August 22, chosen due to its alignment with the seventh day of the seventh lunar month in the Japanese lunisolar calendar.
Narusawa highlighted the ongoing discovery of exoplanets, celestial bodies beyond the Solar System, with billions potentially undiscovered. As Narusawa said, the continuous identification of exoplanets has been occurring since the 1990s, suggesting the possibility of Altair hosting a life-supporting planet within its environment.
Even without a reply, the mission won't be seen as a complete disaster, given the potential need for an extended wait for a response. The uncertainty about receiving a response tonight remains, especially since there have been no discoveries of exoplanets circling Altair. Narusawa maintains his confidence and holds the belief that intelligent life beyond Earth is present somewhere in the cosmos.
Furthermore, August 22 holds importance in the Japanese calendar, providing an additional rationale for the team's choice of this date for contact anticipation. This date corresponds with the "star festival," known as Tanabata, aligning with today's lunar calendar year.
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Why Send Messages to Altair
Altair star rests at a distance of 16.7 light years within the Aquila constellation, ranking among the most luminous stars visible at night. While no confirmed planets encircle it, it remains uncertain whether Morimoto and Hirabayashi were aware of this when they transmitted from Stanford University.
However, this uncertainty does not rule out potential planets orbiting Altair, and the team holds optimism for a response that could signify the presence of a celestial body.
In 2008, a report says that the pair conceived the concept while they were drunk and initially anticipated a response around 2015, which did not materialize. Hirabayashi held optimism for an alien acknowledgment from the Altair star system in 1999, followed by a response directed to Earth.
Reflecting on the matter back then, he expressed his belief in extraterrestrial life's existence while acknowledging its elusive nature. Although the astronomers' approach seemed light-hearted, the consensus among experts generally supports the existence of life beyond Earth.
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