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Scientists have sent several messages to the stars. The first message was sent in the 1970's aboard two different Pioneer space crafts, which are now on an eighty-thousand year journey to Alpha Centauri. Both carry engraved, gold-covered aluminum plaques with information that includes a map showing the location of the Earth in relation to fourteen pulsars, and a drawing of two humans standing by the spacecraft to indicate our size.

A second message to the stars went out in 1974 from a radio telescope in Puerto Rico. It involved one thousand six hundred and seventy nine binary pulses, a number chosen because it’s the product of two prime numbers, 23 and 73. Arranged in vertical rows and columns, they form a pattern where each component has meaning. The pattern includes a picture of a DNA double helix and a human form.

About twenty-five thousand light years from now, the message will arrive in a million star globular cluster M13. If a radio telescope there happens to be pointing in our direction at exactly the right moment, anyone paying attention will get the message. But if they’re not looking during the three minutes allotted for the message they’ll miss it forever.

So next time your message isn’t answered, remember that in the space message business, hearing nothing, proves nothing!