Arecibo Message Decoded: Google Doodle celebrates 44th Anniversary of Interstellar Message

Google is celebrating the 44th anniversary of the Arecibo message, humankind's first interstellar radio message sent by researchers, with a doodle.

Google is celebrating the 44th anniversary of the Arecibo message, humankind's first interstellar radio message sent by researchers, with a doodle.

On November 16, 1974, scientists such as Frank Drake and Carl Sagan, among others, sent a message from the Arecibo radio telescope, located in the community of the same name in Puerto Rico.

The sending of this message was to celebrate the remodelling of the radio telescope and was directed to the cluster of stars called M13, at a distance of 25 thousand light years.

It contained numbers from 1 to 10, information about human DNA, our location in the Solar System and data on humans on the planet.

Those present could not decipher the received messages, but the very fact of listening to two notes vibrating in the air caused many tears.

The 168 seconds of noise, now known as the Arecibo message, is the brainchild of astronomer Frank Drake, who at the time was the director of the organization that was watching the observatory. This radio signal was the first message that humanity deliberately sent to another solar system.

Engineers translated it into sound in order that those gathered could perceive it during transmission. But the mediator itself is a silent, invisible radio pulse travelling at the speed of light.

For most observers, this event seemed promising and even symbolic - a message in a bottle, thrown into the sea of open space.