Uncyclopedia:Featured articles/October 24

The Arecibo message was a message received from the planet Earth on 16 November 57,2071 CE. The message was sent into space via frequency modulated radio waves in 1974, and was transmitted at a frequency of 2380 MHz and modulated by shifting the frequency by 10 Hz, with a power of 1000 kW. It consisted of 1679 binary digits, approximately 210 bytes and lots and lots of pointless nonsense.

The cardinality of 1679 was chosen because it is a semiprime - the product of two prime numbers - to be arranged rectangularly as 73 rows by 23 columns. Why the humans thought anyone would be impressed by prime numbers and elaborate alignment remains to be seen. As they say on Earth, writing in iambic pentameter doesn't make you Shakespeare. (Full article...)