I read something yesterday, can’t remember where but it doesn’t matter, about scientists thinking about what kind of tombstone mankind could leave behind to say “Kilroy Was Here.” Civilizations arise and flourish and disappear, and if there is life elsewhere in the universe, the likelihood that THEY are flourishing at the same time we are flourishing is slim-to-none.
Therefore, the thinking goes, it’d be nice to leave behind some unambiguous evidence that we rose up from the muck and for a moment were the masters of the universe. Even if we never get to meet them.
Nothing on Earth would do. It’d weather away in a manner of a few thousand years, and it wouldn’t be visible from outer space.
The idea was proposed, how about a series of satellites orbiting the Sun, spaced such that they spell out pi or the prime number sequence.
But they’d have to be awfully big satellites, to interfere with enough sunlight to be detectable from a distance. And they’d have to orbit inside the orbit of Mercury, which means solar wind would be a factor. They’d have withstand solar radiation.
And besides all that, I can’t see our fractious species undertaking such a huge endeavor with no known benefit.
Still, it makes a thought-provoking queston: what COULD we leave behind?
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