MANILA, Philippines — Naked photos of humans are planned to be sent to space in hopes of sending a message to any alien civilization in the Milky Way galaxy.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists in a study revealed its plans on sending digitized naked photos of a man and woman along with a drawing of a DNA. It will also include information on the biochemical composition of life on Earth, the Solar System's time-stamped position in the Milky Way Galaxy, and digitized depictions of the Solar System and Earth's surface. It also includes an invitation to respond.
This is part of the Beacon in the Galaxy (BITG) project, which is the the latest attempt to contact other sentient beings in outer space.
The message is written in binary code, which scientists believe could be a universal language. It will be sent as a beamed radio wave from the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio telescope (FAST) in China and the SETI Institute's Allen Telescope Array in Northern California.
Scientists acknowledge that human mathematics might be unrecognizable to aliens but they posit that binary is likely universal across all intelligence.
"Binary is the simplest form of mathematics as it involves only two opposing states: zero and one, yes or no, black or white, mass or empty space. Hence, the transmission of the code as binary would very likely be understandable to ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence) and is the basis of the BITG message," the authors of the study said.
It is not the first time that Earth sent out a message to outer space. The first was a binary message using the Arecibo Transmission in 1974. It contained information on Earth's location, mathematics system, and the most common elements to humans. This first transmission served as the template for future messages.