Categories: Lifestyle

8-bit babes: NASA might send naked images of humans to space

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Were the aliens in Arrival just looking for a good time, and the whole ‘save the future’ thing was a secondary goal? It could be the case, especially if NASA decides to send its own version of human ‘nudes’, alongside other info about the earth and life on it, into space.

Time for a really low-level explanation. A team of scientists, working under contract for NASA, recently released a paper titled “A Beacon in the Galaxy”. In it, they included some fundamentals about our whole deal, including where we are in our solar system, what our gravity is like, and yes, what humans look like when they aren’t wearing any clothes. The message is going to be sent in binary code, which is assumed to be the most basic (and therefore easiest to understand) method of communication that we have.

It’s not the first time we’ve tried it, either. Almost 50 years ago, a similar message called ‘Arecibo’ was also sent out, with some similar info attached to it. However, the Beacon in the Galaxy message is a little bit more robust, and will be aimed towards a different part of the universe. Also, the Arecibo message is only some 0.2% towards its target, so it might not hurt to get a couple more out there.

Which brings us back to waxing poetic about Arrival. Sure, the whole ‘see time differently’ thing might stand, but let’s say you know that bees would one day help us out, and you’ve seen a picture of a bee before. If you show up to a hive, and all of them are wearing fake mustaches and a top hat, you might not be convinced that they’re actually bees.

Something to think about! Just kidding, we’ll leave the implications of contact with extraterrestrials to the pros.