(Abstract, accepted for poster presentation at IAU Symposium 213: "Bioastronomy 2002: Life Among the Stars", July 2002, Hamilton Islands, Australia)

The Teen-Age Message: Design and Implementation

Lilia N. Filippova, Lev M. Gindilis,
Sergei P. Ignatov, Boris G. Pshenichner,
and Alexander L. Zaitsev (alzaitsev@ms.ire.rssi.ru)

The Teen-Age Message (TAM) was transmitted from Evpatoria Planetary Radar to 6 nearby Sun-like stars on August-September 2001. Unlike the previous digital-only Messages, Arecibo-1974 and Evpatoria-1999, the TAM has complex, three-section structure with different forms of information. Section 1 represents coherent sounding radio signal with slow Doppler wavelength tuning to imitate transmission from Sun's center. This signal was transmitted in order to help Extraterrestrials detect the TAM and diagnose radio propagation effect of interstellar medium. Section 2 is an analog information and represents musical melodies, performed on the Theremin. This electric musical instrument produces quasi-monochromatic signal, which is easily detectable across interstellar distances. There were seven musical compositions in the 1st Theremin Concert for Aliens. Section 3 represents a well-known Arecibo-like binary digital information: Logotype of TAM, bilingual Russian and English Greeting to Aliens and Image Glossary. This section and the Concert program were composed by teens from different sites of Russia. The TAM Schedule, Concert program and complete listing of the images and target stars are available at http://www.seti.housenet.org and http://ebe.allwebco.com/Science/