Puerto Rico's Arecibo receiver is famous in the movies "Contact" and "GoldenEye 007." However, there's another story to tell. On Nov 16, 1974, astronomers zapped their most famous message which was 1679 bits, a few minutes long, and trillions of watts. It's heading at the speed of light to a globular cluster in the Constellation Hercules which has about 300,000 close stars. It's a hope that intelligent life 27,000 light-years away will find the message and respond.
The 1679 bits are unambiguous, because 1679 is only divisible by two primes. It has two combinations, which are 23 columns x 73 rows or 73 columns x 23 rows. For example, 360 isn't made by two primes and would be a poor choice of a number to use because it's 180x2, 120x3, 90x4, 72x5, and so on. All of the bits in the message are ones and zeros, with ones being highlighted. This is because math is the only thing that's constant in all of the languages whether human or extra-terrestrial. Prime numbers stand out because it's extremely difficult to find an ordered natural phenomenon that occurs only in prime numbers in the frequency or wavelength of hydrogen.
The message didn't have colors or the border that I placed around it for contrast. It's read right to left.
In red, we've indicated that we count in tens by using binary with a place value pixel under each. In orange, we've indicated that our bodies need elements 1(H), 6(C), 7(N), 8(O), and 15(P) to live. This is all making the assumption that the intelligent life finding the message will be a civilization that discovered DNA, names atoms by proton numbers, and has invented receivers.
Green indicates the phosphate "rails of the DNA ladder." Rose indicates the DNA base pairs. In no particular order, they are adenosine, thyamine, guanine, and cytosine.
Turquoise or cyan shows the curls of DNA. Scientists took special care to show that the DNA has the correct angle, turn, and ratio of amplitude to wavelength which is different from RNA. These characteristics are different for RNA, and we can't be sure if life on other planets has DNA, RNA, or both.
For the rest of the message, I've placed dimensioning arrows in black, and the other binary numbers in blue. Above the man's head, it's the binary number of human DNA base pairs. Next to his right hand, it's the estimated population of the world in 1974. To his left, it's his height based on a wavelength or frequency of hydrogen.
Lavender shows a star with nine planets. The 3rd planet is raised above with a man on it to show where we are.
The figure at the bottom could confuse you that it's an M under an arch, but it's actually the Arecibo receiver. At the bottom of the message the size of the receiver is shown.
For more info, use a search engine to look up the nonfiction term "SETI," or you can read "Contact" By Carl Sagan, or the movie* based on it. Hopefully, we will make contact someday.
*There's Christianity and Atheism in the movie "Contact." The views in the movie "Contact" or on this web page do not necessarilly reflect my University.
-Matt Stath on Dec 9, 2004