Editing our Extraterrestrial DM

An image of the original 1970s Arecibo message. SETI Institute

Back in Season 2 of Wild Thing, we introduced you to the Arecibo message—our first ever message sent to extraterrestrials 21,000 light years away with the hopes that some intelligent civilization near the edge of the Milky Way would receive it and come calling. Now, nearly 50 years later, some NASA researchers are updating the message with more detailed information.

“Beacon in the Galaxy,” the updated signal, adds more to the original message, including a map of our planet, more information on how our mathematics and sciences work, where Earth is located in our solar system, what Earth is made of, what humans are made of (with much more graphic nudes), and how to communicate with us (assuming they want to after seeing the nudes).

The above images are among many that the scientists incorporated in an extensive paper about the need to send an updated Arecibo message.

“We want to send a message in a bottle in the cosmic ocean, to say, 'Hey, we are here,'" Jonathan Jiang, astrophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, told Live Science’s Stephanie Pappas for an article in Smithsonian Magazine. "Even if we are not here some years later."

I read about this a while back but kind of forgot about it until now. It’s such fascinating stuff—and if you need a refresher on the Arecibo message, listen to Episode 7 of Wild Thing: Space Invaders.

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