Pay attention to the aliens. “We think the 235 billion mile journey is worth it.”,” says the hilarious travel ad that features the first interstellar campaign. But they are serious. A group of scientists, linguists and academics from Kentucky, USA, have already transmitted the message in the hope that it will be received by some alien in deep space.
VisitLEX, the group behind the project, recently broadcast the campaign to the TRAPPIST-1 system. which is located 40 light years from Earth and has several potentially habitable planets. The initiative is being promoted by the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Lexington, Kentucky’s second most populous city.
The team used a modified infrared laser to transmit a specially coded message to the aliens. It was previously approved by the US Federal Aviation Administration. They also received help from the advertising agency Cornett.
The message will take almost 39 years to reach this region of space. “When the message reaches its destination in 2063, the inhabitants of TRAPPIST-1 will discover a bitmap encoded with clues about its origin and purpose of transmission,” the group explains on its website.
The coded message includes images of Lexington, which is promoted as the horse capital of the world. It is noteworthy, for example, that there are open spaces here that are ideal for landing an extraterrestrial spacecraft. And that their food and bourbon are universally enjoyed.
How was the first tourism campaign to attract aliens broadcast?
“Bourbon is that brown stuff people love to drink, and Lexington is the center of the bourbon universe,” they say in a kind of “guide to aliens.” They said they also shared a taste of Earth’s music through an audio recording of legendary blues musician T.D. Young.
“We’re targeting the TRAPPIST-1 system because we might get the answer in someone’s lifetime if someone were observing it,” said Robert Lodder, an astrobiologist and SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) scientist.
In 2017, NASA announced the discovery of this system, which contains a group of planets considered to be in the habitable zone. That is, neither so far nor so close to its star. Theoretically, they will have a temperature similar to that of Earth. “So there could be life there. “Why not send a signal and see if they answer?” Lodder emphasized.
The message was sent in December from the Kentucky Horse Park Museum and Event Center in Lexington. In the middle of the night, they held a ceremony in which several people took part with signs welcoming the aliens.
Coded message
“The bitmap is the key to everything,” said linguistics expert Andrew Bird. “We included images that represent the elements of life, our iconic Lexington hills and the molecular structure of water, bourbon and even dopamine… Because Lexington is fun!” – Bird noted.
The project’s website includes an estimate of the time it will take for the tourism campaign to reach this system. 235 billion miles is approximately 378 billion kilometers. Let’s hope the aliens have faster ships to make the journey a little shorter.
The search for extraterrestrial life will intensify in the coming years. In fact, NASA already has plans to commission its Habitable Worlds Observatory. The US space agency has said it hopes to launch the powerful new telescope by 2040. in order to search for planets similar to Earth outside our solar system. This will be NASA’s first mission specifically designed to search for extraterrestrial life.
Source: Hiper Textual
