Javier Quintela
07/04/2020 - 8:00
- Clarín.com
- International
The question was asked many times throughout history: is there life on other planets?
The unknown remains, of course. The truth is that in the 1970s, shortly after the arrival of man on the moon, NASA devised a new mission with two specific objectives.
The first was to photograph Jupiter and study its atmosphere; the second is to send a message to the aliens.
Artist's drawing of the Pioneer 10 probe passing Jupiter. (Photo: AP)
The ship's name was Pioneer 10 . It was actually an unmanned space probe. Within it would travel this "interstellar note", which would eventually become known as "The Pioneer Plate" .
How the idea of sending a message to aliens came about
It was journalist Eric Burgess who came up with the original idea, although he never really thought he was going to convince the United States space agency. "If there is a chance that we will find extraterrestrial life , we should give them a message, like a greeting," he assured them.
What Burguess did not know at the time was that he would have very special help : that of the renowned astronomer Carl Sagan , director of the laboratory of Planetary Studies at Cornell University, who was his friend.
Astronomer Carl Sagan participated in the message that it would travel on the Pioneer probe. (Photo: AP)
Sagan hired graphic designer Frank Drake and his first wife, artist and writer Linda Salzman Sagan , to create a sketch to present to NASA.
The illustrations were done on two gold plates.
Technically, they were two gold plates that had to "summarize" what we humans are and be ready before the launch of the Pioneer 10 space probe - the first to make direct observations and get close-up pictures of Jupiter - on March 2, 1972. , and its counterpart, Pioneer 11, on April 5, 1973.
How to choose the message to send
The problem, now, was another: what message to put on the plates? "We figured the most interesting thing for aliens would be to know what we are like ," Drake, founder of the SETI Institute, told the BBC.
"The Pioneer Badge". (Photo: NASA Ames)
And he detailed: "We thought they would also want to know where the message came from and when it had been sent , since it could be millions of years before it was intercepted."
With this in mind, they set out to map the location of the Earth under the premise that science and mathematics were universal languages . Thus they devised a scheme using pulsars (objects that emit regular pulses of different types of radiation) as coordinates within our Solar System.
The team made an interstellar map. (Photo: NASA Ames)
The map was just one of the messages to be sent. In addition, there were other drawings on the plates . Salzman Sagan was in charge of the illustrations, and did a time trial job.
What were the other illustrations from ? From our Solar System, the trajectory of the Pioneer , the silhouette of the probe, the figure of a man and the other of a woman, the relative position of the Sun to the center of the galaxy and a diagram of the hyperfine transition of the neutral hydrogen, the most abundant element in our universe.
The neutral hydrogen diagram. (Photo: NASA Ames)
A controversy that was not foreseen
One of the drawings in particular sparked a great controversy: that of the body of men and women . "I wanted each figure to have different racial traits. The woman has very almond-shaped eyes and straight hair; I made the man with curly hair and a flattened nose, so that they would be multicultural, " he told the BBC.
The truth is that the outfit was a problem. "How was I going to dress them? In tribal costumes? In haute couture clothing? No, we decided to leave them naked, " added the artist.
The location of the Earth was detailed using pulsars. (Photo: NASA Ames)
However, his uncertainty revolved around the details he would draw. "Many of the statues I had been looking at did not have very specific female genitalia ... I didn't know what to do, " Linda recalled.
And he detailed: "There were only a few days left, I think five, so they would let us put the plate on the spacecraft, and Carl told me: 'Don't do anything that could get us in trouble with NASA or give anyone an excuse to don't put the badge on the spaceship. '"
The drawings of the man and the woman aroused an unthinkable controversy. (Photo: NASA Ames)
The result: Salzman Sagan did not draw female genitalia. "NASA was very concerned that some members of Congress were very conservative and offended that taxpayer money was used to send obscenities into space," Drake said.
A new problem: Who was greeting the aliens?
Another of the questions that the drawing of Sagan's wife received was by who greeted the aliens: it was the man who had his hand raised , unlike the woman, who had both at his sides.
In Linda Salzman Sagan's illustration, the man was the one waving. (Photo: NASA Ames)
" Feminism was just beginning to be a big topic of conversation and many women said, 'Well, why aren't we saluting the Universe, why don't we have our hands up?' "said Salzman Sagan.
The plate attached to the Pioneer 10 probe. (Photo: NASA Ames)
"The problem was that if they both raised their hands, the aliens were going to think that everyone on Earth had their hands raised ... we had to take those things into account," he explained.
The launch and a great mystery: did the message reach the aliens?
Finally, at 20:42 on Thursday, March 2, 1972, NASA launched the Pioneer 10 probe from Cape Canaveral, in Florida (United States). He did it on a rocket called "Atlas Centaur".
The Pioneer 10 probe was launched on Thursday, March 2, 1972. (Illustrative photo: EFE)
Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to go through the asteroid belt , an achievement considered spectacular by experts. He then headed for Jupiter, the planet he arrived on December 3, 1973.
The spacecraft was the first to make direct observations and obtain close-up images of Jupiter. In addition, he traced the intense radiation belts of the giant gas planet, located the planet's magnetic field, and established that it is predominantly a liquid planet.
Pioneer 10 helped determine that Jupiter is predominantly a liquid planet, among other things. (Photo: Shutterstock)
Ten years later, in 1983, Pioneer 10 became the first man-made object to pass the orbit of Pluto, the most distant planet from the Sun.
"Pioneer 10 is an explorer in the true sense of the word. After passing near Mars on its long journey in deep space, it ventured into places where no human-built object had ever gone before, " said the doctor. Colleen Hartman, director of the NASA Solar System Exploration Division in Washington.
He added: "It ranks among the most historical, as well as the most scientifically significant explorations ever undertaken."
Where in the universe is the probe currently?
The spacecraft continued to do valuable research in the outer regions of the solar system until its science mission ended on March 31, 1997.
NASA received the last message from the Pioneer 10 probe in 2003. (Photo: EFE)
In May 2003, NASA reported that Pioneer 10's nuclear power source had declined, and it could not have enough power to send additional transmissions to Earth. "After more than 30 years, the venerable spacecraft 'Pioneer 10' appears to have sent its last signal to Earth, " the statement read.
The latest known about Pioneer 10 corresponds to information released by the US space agency last year. "Pioneer 10 is heading towards the Aldebaran star in the Taurus constellation and it will take more than two million years to reach it."
Currently the Pioneer 10 probe is directed towards the star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus. (Photo: NASA Ames)
How far can the probe go, then? NASA graphed it in an almost poetic way : "Pioneer 10 will continue to travel silently like a ghost ship through deep space in interstellar space ."