World spec'mode

Star Radio

In 2038, various radio astronomy clubs around the globe joined forces for a common initiative: to transmit radio messages as regularly as possible toward the far reaches of space. The goal is to send samples of our science and culture to potential extraterrestrials. The Chinese FAST radio telescope was thus deployed for a few days for this purpose. But soon, other high-power radio stations around the world were brought online. As a result, thanks to this new equipment, radio transmissions sent into space are no longer just occasional, but nearly continuous—and sometimes in multiple directions simultaneously. Thus, “Star Radio” was born. With “Star Radio” comes a promise: to broadcast 24 hours a day all kinds of messages of goodwill, music, and historical radio archives—all enhanced with excerpts from scientific and artistic literature encoded in binary code. On a few occasions, astronauts living on the surface of the Moon may even be able to receive these transmissions and then relay them in another direction through space. While the content of the messages is necessarily limited by the available bandwidth of radio systems, radio transmission still has the advantage of being much simpler to implement than a time capsule carried aboard a space object. There is no need to worry about payload or the durability of the message, since a radio wave is simply a stream of particles whose intensity will not fade even after traveling considerable distances over several billion years. And who knows—perhaps another civilization will be there to listen, ready to marvel at the strange sounds emanating from a distant planet lost thousands of light-years away…