Will We Finally Hear From Aliens? Scientists Await Response To 40-Year-Old Message

Scientists are eagerly awaiting a potential response to a message that was sent to aliens 40 years ago. The message was sent to the star Altair, which is located 16.7 light-years away. Altair is a promising candidate for hosting alien life, despite not having any known planets.

The message was crafted by Japanese astronomers Masaki Morimoto and Hisashi Hirabayashi and transmitted from a telescope at Stanford University in 1983. The message was designed to depict Earth’s characteristics and the nature of life on our planet.

The window to receive a response is very narrow. The message will only be receivable for one hour on August 23, 2023. A team led by Shinya Narusawa from the University of Hyogo plans to use a Japanese telescope to scan for any signals originating from Altair during this time window.

The chosen date for this attempt is significant because it coincides with Japan’s Tanabata star festival. The Tanabata festival symbolizes the union of two deities, with Altair representing one of them.

Shinya Narusawa maintains optimism about the possibility of extraterrestrial life and the potential reception of their original message. Given the discoveries of numerous exoplanets since the 1990s, Altair, too, might possess a conducive environment for life to thrive.

Notably, in 2008, Hisashi Hirabayashi revealed that the idea to send the message had emerged during a drunken moment. Despite the skepticism surrounding the search for extraterrestrial life, Hirabayashi received an array of enthusiastic messages from schoolchildren intrigued by the transmission.