By committing to a project on a scale humanity has never undertaken before --and following through despite the uncertainty— we have become that long-lived, stable civilization we've been looking for all along.

On Nov. 16, 1974, scientists fired off a nearly three-minute radio message into space with the express intention of communicating with intelligent extraterrestrial life.

That’s precisely what the missive was — a demonstration of the Arecibo radio telescope’s technological prowess to fire off a powerful signal into the far reaches of space. It was never seriously expected to make contact with alien life. That should change. It’s time to follow up on that transmission 50 years later with a new, multigenerational project looking for proof that we are not alone in the universe.

We are living in strange and precarious times — marked by perpetual wars, a global climate crisis and polarized feelings about the state of the world. At this moment, when terrestrial concerns are tearing us apart, what if we looked to the heavens for a reason to hope? Knowing that another civilization is surviving the gantlet of its own challenges could reassure us. And while we hope to succeed in discovering and contacting other life, even concluding that we are alone in the universe could be a revelation that helps unite our species.

The Arecibo message tries to establish a common language with another species through math and science

Then it lists key elements essential to life on Earth through their atomic numbers.

Should such a message ever reach another civilization and evoke a response, its impact would be world changing. Statistically speaking, any extraterrestrial species we contact will probably be much older — and hopefully wiser — than Homo sapiens. While humanity is relatively new to existential threats of its own making (like nuclear annihilation), any civilizations we hear from may have realized a stability and longevity inconceivable to us. Even if their reply is as simple as a confirmation that they got our message, the knowledge that it’s possible to survive the similarly monumental threats we face today will be profound.

It takes 25,000 years for a radio message to traverse the 25,000 light-year distance. If we receive an immediate reply to our first message, it won’t be for about 50,000 years at the earliest.

Surely we can do better. We should start by targeting star systems closer to Earth, such as Proxima Centauri, located just a little over four light-years away and orbited by a potentially habitable planet. Transmitting toward star systems in our galactic backyard would dramatically reduce the time for a round-trip exchange. And the closer the star is to Earth, the “louder” our radio signal will be to aliens, making our message easier to hear. For example, if we send the Arecibo message to a star 25 light-years from Earth — a thousand times closer to Earth than M13 — it will be a million times easier to detect.

But over time, we’ll come to realize that by committing to a project on a scale humanity has never undertaken before — and following through despite the uncertainty — we have become that long-lived, stable civilization we’ve been looking for all along.