Aliens…That's what people think all the time when they see something floating around in the sky. And many people think that aliens are kidnapping people. Flying around in UFOs. Some people think that they are microscopic. Not little green guys with bug-like eyes unseen life forms hidden on Mars or some place.
Messages to life forms
NASA and other space agencies have been able to send spacecrafts into deep space to explore the outer solar system and the gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune)
And when their missions were over to send a message as it traveled throughout the Milkyway. Hoping one day that something would find it and see Earth.
Voyagers
NASAs Voyager 1 and 2 probes have been in space for over 40 years. And traveled to the outer planets. In August 2012 Voyager 1 became the first manmade object to escape the Sun's heliosphere.
After leaving the solar system Voyager 1 counted to study interstellar space. Voyager 2 followed in 2018.
Both probes carry small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin. NASA placed an ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2, a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to aliens. The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images to show life and culture on Earth.
Space Time Capsule
KEO is the name of a space time capsule which was to have been launched in 2003 carrying messages from the citizens of present Earth.
The European Space Agency (ESA) didn’t launch it due to its budget.
KEO could be launched into space in the 2030s but with ESA budget plans it is uncertain.
Quotes To Aliens
Lucy is a NASA space probe on a twelve-year journey to eight different asteroids, visiting a main belt asteroid as well as seven Jupiter Trojans, asteroids which share Jupiter's orbit around the Sun.
NASA put in the Lucy Plaque and it features messages to possible aliens or future humans.
It contains quotes from some of famous people:
Carl Sagan, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., guitarist Brian May of the band Queen, Kazuo Ishiguro, Rita Dove, Juan Felipe Herrera, Billy Collins and the Beatles.
The Lucy time capsule also includes the day of the spacecraft’s launch.
Signals
In 1960 the USA and Soviet Union started sending messages to aliens from a radio antenna.
In the 1960s the USA sent several messages to Mars and Venus. But no answer. Then in the 1970s they started sending the messages to stars. A few times people thought that they had gotten an answer. But in the end it was just a satellite or the solar winds made by the Sun.
Image Source: NASA (The Golden Record)
Today many messages are still sent to the stars. For some of them it will take 9,700 years to get where they're going.
NASA says that it is unlikely that aliens flying around in UFOs are very unlikely. If there's anything out there it would be microscopic or Plantae (Plants) But you never know what could happen…