Skip to main content

Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence #3


 

Pioneer plaque

The Pioneer plaques are a pair of gold-anodized aluminium plaques which were placed on board the 1972 Pioneer 10 and 1973 Pioneer 11 spacecraft, featuring a pictorial message, in case either Pioneer 10 or 11 are intercepted by extraterrestrial life. The plaques show the nude figures of a human male and female along with several symbols that are designed to provide information about the origin of the spacecraft.[1]
The Pioneer spacecraft were the first human-built objects to leave the solar system. The plaques were attached to the spacecraft's antenna support struts in a position that would shield them from erosion by stellar dust.

Physical properties

  • Material: 6061 T6 gold-anodized aluminum
  • Width: 229 mm (9 inches)
  • Height: 152 mm (6 inches)
  • Thickness: 1.27 mm (0.05 inches)
  • Mean depth of engraving: 0.381 mm (0.015 inches)
  • Mass: approx. 0.120 kilograms
Wikipedia 




At the far right, the bracketing bars (1) show the height of the woman compared to the spacecraft.  The figure indicated by (2)
 represents a reverse in the direction of spin of the electron in a hydrogen atom. This transition puts out a characteristic radio 
wave 21 cm long, so we are indicating that 21 cm is our base length.  The horizontal and vertical ticks (3) are a representation
of the number 8 in binary form. Therefore, the woman is 8 x 21 cm = 168 cm, or about 5'5" tall.  The human figures 
represent the type of creature that created Pioneer. The man's hand is raised in a gesture of good will. 
The radial pattern (4) will help other scientists locate our solar system in the galaxy. The solid bars indicate distance, with the 
horizontal bar (5), denoting the distance from the Sun to the galactic center. The shorter solid bars represent directions and 
distances to various pulsars from our Sun, and the ticks following them are the periods of the pulsars in binary form. Pulsars 
are known to be slowing down and if the rate of slowing is constant, an other-world scientist should be able to roughly 
deduce the time Pioneer was launched.  Thus, we have placed ourselves approximately in both space and time. The 
drawing at the bottom (6) indicates our solar system.  The ticks accompanying each planet are the relative distance in binary
 form of that planet to the Sun. Pioneer's trajectory is shown as starting from the third planet, Earth.
NASA
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Depression

your thoughts – clemmed, treacle slow, laden with seams of pit shaft dark – tread an endless groove, blinkered as a pit prop pony moithered by light your mind – dimmed, dunnock shy, cradled with songs of wind swept moors – dreams a fearless path clinkered as a wind squall diamond mantled with night your self – numbed, fossil still, layered with seals of sun starved gold – furls a nubless cloth crinkled as a sun coaxed rock rose ambered in time. by Helen Overell
6 comments
Read more

Ley Lines #1

The concept of "ley lines" is generally thought of in relation to Alfred Watkins, but the stimulus and background for the concept is attributed to the English astronomer Norman Lockyer . [3] [4] [5] On 30 June 1921, Watkins visited Blackwardine in Herefordshire , and went riding a horse near some hills in the vicinity of Bredwardine , when he noted that many of the footpaths there seemed to connect one hilltop to another in a straight line. [6] He was studying a map when he noticed places in alignment. "The whole thing came to me in a flash", he later told his son. [7] It has been suggested that Watkin's experience stemmed from faint memories of an account in September 1870 by William Henry Black given to the British Archaeological Association in Hereford titled Boundaries and Landmarks , in which he speculated that "Monuments exist marking grand geometrical lines which cover the whole of Western Europe". [8] Watkins believed that, in ancie
Post a Comment
Read more

Extinct Promotion

My story "Connect" was published last year in the anthology "Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever," edited by the formidable Phoenix Sullivan. On Tuesday, January 31, you can download the entire anthology Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever free from the Kindle store.  On both Tuesday and Wednesday, you can download each of the 18 single stories for free, including my story, Connect . By any reasonable measure we are dead. Unity -- slow, cold and broken -- is leaving me behind. It’s a slowly boiling mass of speckled gray now. I’m walking away from it, building, understanding, memorizing as I go. And to do these things, to tie them together, I use my memories. Of being alive, of dying, of being dead. Other authors in the anthology are participating in this promotion: Chrystalla Thoma: "The Angel Genome"  Peter Dudley: "Distractions" Shona Snowden: "Blood Fruit"  Scott Thomas Smith: "In Ring" Jo Antareau: "My Own
Post a Comment
Read more