The Teen Age Message (TAM) was a series of interstellar radio transmissions sent from the
Yevpatoria Planetary Radar to six
solar-type stars during August–September 2001. The structure of the TAM was suggested by
Alexander Zaitsev Alexander Zaytsev may refer to:
*Alexander Zaytsev (artist), Alexander Dmitryevich Zaytsev (1903–1982), Russian painter and art educator
*Alexander Zaytsev (pilot), Alexander Andreyevich Zaytsev (1911–1965), Soviet aircraft pilot and Hero of the ...
, Chief Scientist at Russia's
Institute of Radio-engineering and Electronics
Institute of Radio-engineering and Electronics (russian: Институт радиотехники и электроники (ИРЭ)) by the Russian Academy of Science is an institute in Moscow, that conducts fundamental research in fields of rad ...
. The message's content and target stars were selected by a group of teens from four Russian cities, who collaborated in person and via the Internet.
Each transmission comprised three sections: a
sounding, a live
theremin
The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...
concert, and digital data including images and text. TAM was humanity's fourth
Active SETI
Active SETI (Active Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) is the attempt to send messages to intelligent extraterrestrial life. Active SETI messages are predominantly sent in the form of radio signals. Physical messages like that of the P ...
broadcast and the first musical interstellar radio message.
Overview
Zaitsev's proposal for a musical message – the "First
Theremin
The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...
Concert for Extraterrestrials" – was submitted to the
Arecibo Observatory
The Arecibo Observatory, also known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) and formerly known as the Arecibo Ionosphere Observatory, is an observatory in Barrio Esperanza, Arecibo, Puerto Rico owned by the US National Science F ...
in July 2000. It was rejected amid concerns over the dangers posed by advertising the presence of humanity to unknown and possibly highly advanced civilizations. After another unsuccessful attempt to garner support, the project was backed by the
Yevpatoria RT-70 radio telescope
The Yevpatoria RT-70 radio telescope (P-2500, RT-70) is an RT-70 radio telescope and planetary radar at the Center for Deep Space Communications, Yevpatoria, Crimea. In the scientific literature is often called Evpatoria Planetary Radar (EPR).
...
with funding from the Education Department of Moscow.
Unlike the previous digital-only messages
Arecibo-1974 and
Cosmic Call 1
Cosmic commonly refers to:
* The cosmos, a concept of the universe
Cosmic may also refer to:
Media
* ''Cosmic'' (album), an album by Bazzi
* Afro/Cosmic music
* "Cosmic", a song by Kylie Minogue from the album '' X''
* CosM.i.C, a member of ...
, TAM had a three-part structure, each containing different forms of
information
Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...
. Such structure was suggested by Alexander Zaitsev, and was intended to make the message easier to detect and interpret. The three elements of each transmission were:
# A coherent
sounding signal with slow
Doppler wavelength tuning to imitate transmission from the Sun's center. This signal was transmitted in order to help
extraterrestrials
Extraterrestrial life, colloquially referred to as alien life, is life that may occur outside Earth and which did not originate on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected, although efforts are underway. Such life might ...
detect the TAM and diagnose the radio propagation effect of the
interstellar medium
In astronomy, the interstellar medium is the matter and radiation that exist in the space between the star systems in a galaxy. This matter includes gas in ionic, atomic, and molecular form, as well as dust and cosmic rays. It fills interstella ...
.
# Analog information recorded on the
theremin
The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...
. This electric musical instrument produces a quasi-sinusoidal signal which is easily extracted from background noise. There were seven musical compositions in the "First Theremin Concert for Extraterrestrials".
# Binary digital information similar to the Arecibo message, including the logotype of TAM, written greetings in Russian and English, and artistic drawings. This section and the concert program were composed by teens from different parts of Russia.
Theremin concert
![Teen Age Message 7 of 8](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Teen_Age_Message_7_of_8.jpg)
According to Zaitsev,
art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
must be central to any interstellar message. Physical laws and mathematics are almost certainly already known to extraterrestrial intelligences, but our artwork is unique to us.
With this in mind, and in contrast to previous binary digital broadcasts, Zatsev proposed "not a discrete two-tone radio signal but a more native continuous one, in which smooth frequency variations directly transfer one-dimensional emotional information. I am talking about music, which is more universally comprehensible than language, and about theremin, which is an electronic noncontact musical instrument."
Three theremin performers from the Moscow
Theremin Center
{{notability, date=June 2022
The Theremin Center for Electroacoustic Music was created in Moscow, Russia in 1992 by the group of musicians and computer scientists, under the leadership of Andrey Smirnov. It was named for Leon Theremin - Russian in ...
–
Lydia Kavina
Lydia Evgenevna Kavina (; born 8 September 1967) is a Russian-British theremin player, based in Oxfordshire, UK.
The granddaughter of Léon Theremin's first cousin, Soviet anthropologist and primatologisMikhail Nesturkh Kavina was born in Mosco ...
, Yana Aksenova, and Anton Kerchenko – were invited to perform seven songs selected by students.
The program included two
Russian folk songs
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
* Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and pe ...
and works by
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
,
Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lifetime was widespread a ...
,
Saint-Saëns,
Rakhmaninov
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one o ...
, and
Gershwin. Kavina submitted recordings of her performance, but Aksenova and Kerchenko performed live – the radar dish had been specially modified to accept input from theremins. Each performance lasted about fifteen minutes.
The First Theremin Concert for Extraterrestrials was the world's first musical
Active SETI
Active SETI (Active Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) is the attempt to send messages to intelligent extraterrestrial life. Active SETI messages are predominantly sent in the form of radio signals. Physical messages like that of the P ...
broadcast, and was sent seven years before NASA's
Across the Universe
"Across the Universe" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. It was written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song first appeared on the 1969 various artists' charity compilation album ''No One's Gonna Change Our W ...
message.
![Sonograms](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Sonograms.jpg)
''Sonograms (frequency variations) of 40-second pieces of three musical compositions from The First Theremin Concert: (from left to right) the last movement of the 9th Symphony by Beethoven, “The Swan” by Saint-Saens, and “Summertime” by Gershwin.''
Single-side band (SSB) modulation was used for up-conversion of the Theremin's analog audio signals to carrier frequency 5010 MHz (6 cm wavelength) for sending toward the target stars.
Targets
The target stars were:
See also
*
Across the Universe (message) Across the Universe is an interstellar radio message (IRM) consisting of the song "Across the Universe" by the Beatles that was transmitted on 4 February 2008, at 00:00 UTC by NASA in the direction of the star Polaris. This transmission was made ...
*
Communication with extraterrestrial intelligence
The communication with extraterrestrial intelligence (CETI) is a branch of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) that focuses on composing and deciphering interstellar messages that theoretically could be understood by another techn ...
*
List of interstellar radio messages This is a list of interstellar radio messages (IRMs) transmitted from Earth.
Classification of interstellar radio messages
There are twelve realized IRM projects:
* The Morse Message (1962)
* Arecibo message (1974), one transmission to Messier 1 ...
*
Search for extraterrestrial intelligence
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other pl ...
*
The Morse Message (1962)
The Morse Message was a series of brief radio messages in Morse code that were transmitted from the Evpatoria Planetary Radar (EPR) complex and directed to the planet Venus in 1962.
The message consisted of three words, all encoded in Morse code ...
References
Further reading
*
*
*
External links
Self-Decoding MessagesSending and Searching for Interstellar MessagesListen to six Theremin melodies as recorded for the Theremin concert
{{Interstellar messages
Interstellar messages
Search for extraterrestrial intelligence
Time capsules
Technology in society
2001 in Ukraine
2001 in science