EUROPE: When scientists sent the Pioneer 10 pictorial message into space in 1972, their primary objective was to tell potential extraterrestrials about the nature humankind as well as modern day concepts of what life was on Earth at the time.
However, a lot of things have changed in man’s way of life some 43 years since the launch of the message pod.
A team of British philosophers and astronomers from the United Kingdom’s SETI Research Network (UKSRN) are now planning to update the pictorial message by sending new plaques into space.
At a recent conference in Leeds, members of the UKSRN decided to send out an updated version of the Pioneer 10’s pictorial message, this time to reflect the diversity of life and gender equality on Earth.
Space policy expert Jill Stuart at the London School of Economics (LSE) said that the original message plaques placed onboard the Pioneer 10, which were meant to convey the spacecraft’s origin and to provide information on the inhabitants of Earth, presented several issues to modern observers.
She pointed out that the pictorial message portrays an image of a man with his hand raised in a manly fashion while an image of a woman is depicted as standing behind him, seemingly meek and submissive.
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