A San Francisco based organization known as Messaging Extra terrestrial Intelligence (METI) is intending to send radio signals to other worlds instead of expecting aliens to communicate with earth. For this task, scientists have chosen the nearest star-Proxima centaury (PC), to earth. the project aims to send salutations in radio or laser signals to an earth-like planet in PC and then to more distant planets.
this would be the first attempt to try to establish contact with other civilizations in outer space.
Objectives and purposes of METI
this organization was founded last year and its main purpose is to promote international collaboration in the design and transmission of interstellar messages. This implies the social implications related to the search for life beyond the earth, even before the first contact with other outer civilizations. METI intends to research and transmit to the general public the factors that influence the origins, evolution and distribution of life in the universe in the future, addressing principally the last three terms of the Drake Equation.
Are extraterrestrial hostile?
One of the main concerns that come to mind when trying to contact alien civilizations is the way in which they would react when encountering humans for the first time. those who are concerned consider if it´s worthwhile to encounter aliens given that they are hostile and if we as humans really want to let them know where earth is located in the universe. Opinions of renowned scientists and theoretical physicists, such as Stephen Hawking have also raised concerns of whether we should draw attention of ourselves to other civilizations.
Communicating with aliens
in the past, there have been efforts to try to communicate with aliens. in the 1970s, spacecraft Pioneers 10 and 11 carried a signal that meant to convey where in the universe humans were located.
the message also included a phonograph record portraying the cultural diversity on earth. Frank Drake from the Search for Extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) sent a radio message assembled into a pictogram of images. recently, scientists have sent concerts of Vivaldi and Gershwin. The song by the Beatles, ¨Across the Universe, ¨ was also sent to outer space.