Artist's conception of Gliese 581 d.
Do you remember that scene in Contact, where it turns out the first broadcast aliens received from Earth was of Adolph Hitler? Well, Australia’s COSMOS Magazine has decided to lower Earth’s galactic credibility even further by beaming a bunch of text messages at some aliens they hope might exist and be listening. They’ve even somehow roped NASA into the deal.
The Pioneer probes carry space porn, and instructions on where to find more. Image Credit: NASA.
It’s not like this is the first time NASA has gone out of its way to send messages to possibly non-existent (and possibly hostile) aliens. The Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 probes are both carrying aluminum plaques that not only show aliens how to get here, but also that we’re really into porn.Voyagers 1 and 2 carry the famous golden records, as well as instructions and equipment for playing them back. The records have greetings in many different languages, nature sounds, and over 115 images. New Frontier News was unable to find out if those were also porn.
On August 23, 2009, NASA’s Tidbinbilla radio telescope will send a really, really, really long text message to Gliese 581d, a rocky “Super-Earth” orbiting a dim red dwarf star roughly 20.3 light years away. Of all the planets discovered outside our solar system so far, Gliese 581d has the best chance of having liquid water, and thus life.