{"id":18731,"date":"2017-11-16T20:40:21","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T12:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/sonar-calling-campaign-broadcasts-music-and-messages-to-an-alien-super-earth\/"},"modified":"2017-11-16T20:40:21","modified_gmt":"2017-11-16T12:40:21","slug":"sonar-calling-campaign-broadcasts-music-and-messages-to-an-alien-super-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/sonar-calling-campaign-broadcasts-music-and-messages-to-an-alien-super-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018S\u00f3nar Calling\u2019 campaign broadcasts music and messages to an alien super-Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"GJ273
The target of the \u201cSonar Calling\u201d binary-coded radio transmission is a planet known as GJ273 b. (METI International Illustration \/ Danielle Futselaar)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Scientists and artists have banded together to beam coded radio transmissions toward a star that has a potentially habitable planet, just 12.4 light-years from Earth.<\/p>\n

\u201cS\u00f3nar Calling GJ273b\u201d is the latest effort to communicate with aliens, 43 years since the first attempt was made using the 1,000-foot Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

The \u201cS\u00f3nar Calling\u201d messages were sent on three successive days, Oct. 16-18, from the 32-meter EISCAT radio antenna in Troms\u00f8, Norway, just inside the Arctic Circle. Each transmission was directed at peak power of 2 megawatts toward a red dwarf star known as GJ273, or Luyten\u2019s Star, in the constellation Canis Major.<\/p>\n

Astronomers say Luyten\u2019s Star harbors a planet that\u2019s more than twice as massive as Earth, in an orbit where water could conceivably exist in liquid form. \u201cS\u00f3nar Calling\u201d aims to communicate with any radio-savvy life forms on that planet, called GJ273 b.<\/p>\n

The effort is being undertaken by the organizers of Spain\u2019s S\u00f3nar music festival in Barcelona, the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia, and METI International, a San Francisco-based research organization that focuses on the issue of messaging extraterrestrial intelligence.<\/p>\n

\"EISCAT
The message was beamed from the 32-meter EISCAT UHF antenna in Tromso, Norway. (EISCAT via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The message contains a tutorial for its recipients, said Douglas Vakoch, METI International\u2019s president.<\/p>\n

\u201cMETI\u2019s mathematical and scientific tutorial for \u2018S\u00f3nar Calling GJ273b\u2019 includes innovative features like a \u2018cosmic clock\u2019 that lets extraterrestrials confirm that their understanding of time from our scientific message maps onto the passage of time they can observe throughout the transmission itself,\u201d Vakoch told GeekWire in an email.<\/p>\n

The tutorial tries to explain the notion of radio frequency by sending signals as binary code at two frequencies, 929.0 MHz and 930.2 MHz. The code describes those frequencies in mathematical terms.<\/p>\n

EISCAT\u2019s antenna broadcast the binary code three times on each of the three days at a rate of 125 bits per second, adding up to a total transmission time of 33 minutes, Vakoch said. Each time, the cosmic-clock setting was changed to reflect the time of transmission.<\/p>\n

The message also included 33 musical pieces, each lasting 10 seconds, which were commissioned for the project as a tribute to the S\u00f3nar festival. The contributors include sound artist Holly Herndon, French composer Jean-Michel Jarre and the experimental electronic-music duo Matmos.<\/p>\n

S\u00f3nar\u2019s organizers are opening the project for public participation today.<\/p>\n