Message in a bottle used for science

Back in August, the Marine Biological Association of the UK announced a rather surprising world record. A message in a bottle they had released some 108 years earlier into the sea had been found and returned to them – making it the oldest ever such message.

Originally released into the North Sea between 1904 and 1906 as part of research carried out to understand how ocean currents at depth differ from that on the surface, the bottle was one of over 1000 released in an experiment by association member George Parker Bidder. This wonderfully utilitarian approach – in essence, a game of global pooh-sticks – was remarkably effective, beginning the characterisation of the deep currents of the oceans.

And this wasn’t the last message in a bottle used for science, its just now we tend to aim our throw skywards rather than out to sea. Voyager 1 (perhaps the most complex ‘bottle’ in which to house a message yet built) is now considered to have left our solar system behind and, as such, its mission has shifted from one of data collection to one of interstellar messenger. The famous Golden Record it carries is intended as a time capsule to communicate a story of our world to extra-terrestrials.

Now however, a new space-bound message is being created, and this one won’t need a bottle at all. A group of UK based astronomers and philosophers have set about the task of creating a message for an extra-terrestrial civilisation which could be – emphasis on could here – transmitted into space. The group are embarking on the Breakthrough Message contest which is offering a $1 million prize for a message which encompasses all that it is to be human. The contest is being run by the Breakthrough Initiative – set up earlier in the year to seek evidence of life in the Universe.

Yes, the search for extra-terrestrial life has moved from simply listening to actively announcing our presence. And that is very different. Whilst most don’t have a problem with the search for life outside the terrestrial realm, many get apprehensive when simple observation moves to interaction. When switching on the homing beacon for our inconspicuous blue dot in its unremarkable section of a rather typical galaxy, thoughts inevitably turn to our rather shady Earth-bound history. When civilisations collide, that history tells us, results are often less than amicable.

As such, despite the million-buck contest, the Breakthrough Initiative has absolutely no plans to send the message. What’s more, they pledge not to do so until there has been a ‘wide-ranging’ debate at high levels of science and politics on the risks and rewards of contacting advanced civilizations.

Strange then, perhaps, to bother composing something at all. Yet those involved say that the mere act of considering what it is we would say about humanity, and how we would say it to be understood by alien intelligence is the real scientific boon here. And it is a challenge open to all, so if any readers have any ideas, can I suggest answers on a postcard…or, perhaps, inside a bottle.