Sagan Day Celebrations – Day VI
We Are at the Prow of the Whole – By Rui Borges
We find ourselves, in this present time, in this present space, sharing a common opportunity to consciously share the wonders of this journey through the Universe. We are, at the same time, those with the power to generate questions and to seek the answers. We are the whole on a quest for its own reason. The Universe has, in its infinite sequence of events, generated its own awareness and we, as life, as percipient life, are at the threshold of the Incredible. Read Full Essay
50 Years of SETI: One Cup of the Cosmic Ocean – By Jill Tarter, SETI Institute
Frank Drake conducted the first radio search for extraterrestrial intelligence fifty years ago; radio and optical search programs have been ongoing ever since. Many people think that means that we’ve searched exhaustively and should now draw pessimistic conclusions from our lack of success thus far. Carl Sagan knew better. His imagery of the vast cosmic ocean puts our efforts into context. We have barely begun to search! Read Full Essay
Sagan Day Essay Contest
During the preparation and transmission of any interstellar radio messages (IRMs), some scientific and technological issues need to be addressed. The paper «Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence» (METI) [1] lists nine of such issues. We propose to rank planned and already sent IRMs depending on how well three basic METI’s issues are resolved in them. These basic issues are the following: (1) choice of the target stars, (2) energy required per bit of the information, and (3) availability of a special digital or analog key to allow Aliens to decode our message, [2]. In order to rank IRMs, it is necessary to find out whether there are serious concerns regarding of how these three issues were addressed.
