<p>On this day in 1974, mankind made its first attempt to phone ET. The Arecibo message, as it was called, was a 3-minute "phone call" to the universe, or rather just Messier 13, the Hercules Globular Cluster, in an attempt to make contact with alien intelligence.</p>.<p>The message was created to mark the remodelling of the famous Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. It consisted of 1,679 binary digits with a total size of a mere 210 bytes, arranged in a rectangular formation of 73 rows by 23 columns. The transmission took 3 minutes to complete.</p>.<p>The message consisted of 7 parts, written by Frank Drake during his time at Cornell University. The seven parts were as such:</p>.<p>1. The numbers 1-10 in white</p>.<p>2. The atomic numbers of the constituents of the DNA, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, oxygen and phosphorous in purple</p>.<p>3. The formulae for the sugars and nucleotides in the DNA in green</p>.<p>4. The double helix structure of the DNA and the number of nucleotides in one strand in blue and white</p>.<p>5. A graphical representation of a human, the physical height of an average human and the total population of the Earth as of 1974 in red, blue/white and white respectively</p>.<p>6. A graphic of our Solar system and the planet from which the message came in yellow, and</p>.<p>7. A graphic of the Arecibo radio telescope and the physical diameter of the transmitting antenna dish in purple, white and blue</p>.<p>Being transmitted to a cluster some 25,000 light years away, the message still has a long, long way to go before it reaches its destination, and while it is now seen as a mark of human technological advancement as opposed to a phone call, the question remains: Is there an alien intelligence on the other side who will receive this message after it has completed its long journey through the cosmos, and will ET answer the phone?</p>
<p>On this day in 1974, mankind made its first attempt to phone ET. The Arecibo message, as it was called, was a 3-minute "phone call" to the universe, or rather just Messier 13, the Hercules Globular Cluster, in an attempt to make contact with alien intelligence.</p>.<p>The message was created to mark the remodelling of the famous Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. It consisted of 1,679 binary digits with a total size of a mere 210 bytes, arranged in a rectangular formation of 73 rows by 23 columns. The transmission took 3 minutes to complete.</p>.<p>The message consisted of 7 parts, written by Frank Drake during his time at Cornell University. The seven parts were as such:</p>.<p>1. The numbers 1-10 in white</p>.<p>2. The atomic numbers of the constituents of the DNA, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, oxygen and phosphorous in purple</p>.<p>3. The formulae for the sugars and nucleotides in the DNA in green</p>.<p>4. The double helix structure of the DNA and the number of nucleotides in one strand in blue and white</p>.<p>5. A graphical representation of a human, the physical height of an average human and the total population of the Earth as of 1974 in red, blue/white and white respectively</p>.<p>6. A graphic of our Solar system and the planet from which the message came in yellow, and</p>.<p>7. A graphic of the Arecibo radio telescope and the physical diameter of the transmitting antenna dish in purple, white and blue</p>.<p>Being transmitted to a cluster some 25,000 light years away, the message still has a long, long way to go before it reaches its destination, and while it is now seen as a mark of human technological advancement as opposed to a phone call, the question remains: Is there an alien intelligence on the other side who will receive this message after it has completed its long journey through the cosmos, and will ET answer the phone?</p>
