New Delhi, Nov 15: Google, the giant search engine on Friday celebrated 44th anniversary of the Arecibo Message with a doodle.
On November 16, 1974, scientists 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.
Their three-minute radio message-a series of exactly 1,679 binary digits (a multiple of two prime numbers) which could be arranged in a grid 73 rows by 23 columns-was aimed at a cluster of stars 25,000 light years away from earth.
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.