40 years ago two Japanese astronomers, Masaki Morimoto and Hisashi Hirabayashi, sent a radio signal towards a star called Altair, 16.7 light-years away.
using a Telescope at Stanford University ‘while drunk’, the duo relayed a message that was intended to show aliens orbiting the star what Earthings look like.
Now, a team of astronomers from the University of Hyogo is hopeful that they will finally get the answer they have been waiting for and prove that extraterrestrial life exists.
They are positioning a large radio telescope in the city of Saku to receive a response from any planet orbiting Altair, one of the brightest stars in the night sky.
Today (August 22) has been considered the most likely date for a response, although it is unclear how realistic the team’s expectations are of receiving a response.
Do aliens exist? Japanese scientists hope to discover that they do after sending radio signals into the cosmos 40 years ago (file photo)
Radio signals depicting 13 drawings were transmitted from the US on August 15, 1983, reports the Japanese newspaper The Asahi Shimbun.
The original radio signal was transmitted by Morimoto and Hirabayashi from Stanford on August 15, 1983, and depicted 13 drawings, according to the Japanese newspaper. The Asahi Shimbun.
These 13 drawings, decoded into signals and sent as information in an email, represent the evolution of life on Earth, from single-celled organisms to fish, a lizard, an ape, and a family of humans.
The crude sketches also show what appears to be a fish rising from water to land, an early step in human evolution, a human waving, and bizarrely, the word “toast.”
Four decades later, a team led by Shinya Narusawa at Hyogo University is using an antenna more than 200 feet (64 meters) in diameter called the Usuda Deep Space Center in Saku.hoping to detect an answer.
According to The Asahi Shimbun, August 22 has been considered the most likely date for a response, as it is the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the traditional Japanese lunisolar calendar.
Narusawa has pointed out that exoplanets, planets outside our solar system, are being discovered all the time and billions more are believed to exist.
Pictured is the 200-foot antenna at Usuda Deep Space Center, a facility of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
In 2007, scientists captured an image of the rapidly spinning hot star, described as looking “like a spinning ball of pizza dough.”
“A large number of exoplanets have been detected since the 1990s,” Narusawa told The Asahi Shimbun.
‘Altair may have a planet whose environment can support life.’
Altair is 16.7 light-years away in the constellation Aquila and is one of the brightest stars in the night sky.
There are no known planets in orbit around it, though it’s unclear whether Morimoto and Hirabayashi knew this when they sent their message from Stanford University.
However, that is not to say that Altair is certain to have no planets, and the researchers are hoping for a response to their message that is indicative of some form of world.
According to a 2008 report from gizmodothe duo came up with the idea ‘when they were drunk’ and expected an answer as early as 2015, but it never came.
Hirabayashi had hoped that the message would be received by aliens in the Altair star system in 1999 before a reply was sent back to Earth.
“I believe in aliens, but they are very hard to find,” he told Gizmodo at the time.
Alien life has never been discovered, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist (file photo)
Although it seems a bit ironic from astronomers, experts generally agree that life exists outside of Earth.
Some detractors cite the lack of evidence for extraterrestrial civilizations and various high estimates of their probability, commonly known as the Fermi paradox.
In other words, if there is extraterrestrial life, why haven’t we found any evidence of it?
Dr. Gordon Gallup, a biopsychologist at the University of Albany, has a possible answer.
He thinks that alien life may be too scared of ‘dangerous’ and ‘violent’ humans to want to come here.
In an article published last year, he wrote: “If there is intelligent life elsewhere, they may view humans as extremely dangerous.”
“Maybe that’s why there is no compelling proof or evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence: we pose too great a risk and don’t want to be found out.”
Other possible answers to the Fermi paradox is that, like us, aliens have not developed enough technology to make contact with worlds billions of light-years away.
WHAT IS THE FERMI PARADOX?
The Fermi Paradox questions why, given the 200 billion to 400 billion stars and at least 100 billion planets in our galaxy, there have been no signs of extraterrestrial life.
The contradiction is named after its creator, the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi.
He first posed the question in 1950.
Fermi believed it was too extraordinary that not a single extraterrestrial signal or engineering project has yet been detected in the universe, despite its immense vastness.
Fermi concluded that there must be a barrier limiting the rise of intelligent, self-aware, and technologically advanced space-colonizing civilizations.
This barrier is sometimes known as the ‘Great Filter’.
Italian physicist Enrico Fermi devised the so-called Fermi Paradox in the 1950s. It explores why there are no signs of extraterrestrial life, despite the 100 billion planets in our galaxy.
If the main obstacle preventing the colonization of other planets is not in our past, then the barrier that will stop humanity’s prospects of reaching other worlds must be in our future, scientists have theorized.
Professor Brian Cox believes that the advances in science and engineering required for a civilization to begin conquering the stars ultimately lead to its destruction.
He said: ‘One solution to the Fermi paradox is that it is not possible to run a world that has the power to destroy itself and that global collaborative solutions are needed to prevent it.
“It may be that the growth of science and engineering will inevitably outpace the development of political expertise, leading to disaster.”
Other possible explanations for the Fermi paradox include that no other intelligent species have arisen in the universe, there are intelligent alien species, but they lack the necessary technology to communicate with Earth.
Some believe that the distances between intelligent civilizations are too great to allow any kind of two-way communication.
If two worlds are separated by several thousand light-years, it is possible that one or both civilizations will become extinct before a dialogue can be established.
The so-called zoo hypothesis claims that there is intelligent extraterrestrial life, but deliberately avoids any contact with life on Earth to allow for its natural evolution.
