NASA-led team plans to broadcast Earth's location to aliens; scientist warns against it

Scientists have made another attempt to establish contact with alien life. According to a report by The Guardian, a team of international scientists led by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has prepared a new message that the experts want to beam near the centre of the Milky Way. Named the ‘Beacon in the Galaxy’, the cipher consists of principles of communication, concepts of math and physics and even DNA constituents. Interestingly, the scientists have also encoded the coordinates for aliens to accurately pinpoint the position of Earth in the universe. 

How would the message reach aliens?

This project is being led by Jonathan Jiang from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. The team aims to broadcast the binary message into the Milky Way’s galactic center using the California-based Seti Institute’s Allen Telescope Array and China’s 500-metre Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope. 

To ensure that the message reaches aliens, if any, the astrophysicists will beam it to a dense cluster of stars which lie near the centre of the Milky Way. This location has been chosen because scientists believe it to be the most promising location for life. According to The Guardian, the scientists wrote in a preliminary paper, “Humanity has, we contend, a compelling story to share and the desire to know of others – and now has the means to do so."

Scientist warn against sending Earth’s location to Aliens

While the idea of approaching aliens does sound thrilling, an expert from the Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) has warned against broadcasting the aforementioned information. In a conversation with The Daily Telegraph, Anders Sandberg said that handing out details such as Earth’s location and DNA data might be risky irrespective of how small the probability of alien life is. 

“We have very little evidence about whether this is high or low, and there is no scientific consensus. Given the downside could be much bigger than the upside, this doesn’t sound to me like a good situation in which to take active steps toward contact,” Sandberg said. It is worth noting, however, that this is not the first time scientists are beaming an encoded message for aliens to find it. The previous instance dates back to 1974 when astronomers sent a message similar to the ‘Beacon in the Galaxy’ using the Arecibo Observatory located in Puerto Rico. Back then, the message was directed toward a star cluster in our galaxy which is about 25,000 light years away.

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