The Arecibo Message, 1974

The Arecibo message of November 1974 consisted of 1679 characters (ones and zeros).
00000010101010000000000001010000010100000001001000100010001001011001010101010101 01010010010000000000000000000000000000000000000110000000000000000000110100000000 00000000000110100000000000000000010101000000000000000000111110000000000000000000 00000000000001100001110001100001100010000000000000110010000110100011000110000110 10111110111110111110111110000000000000000000000000010000000000000000010000000000 00000000000000000010000000000000000011111100000000000001111100000000000000000000 00011000011000011100011000100000001000000000100001101000011000111001101011111011 11101111101111100000000000000000000000000100000011000000000100000000000110000000 00000000100000110000000000111111000001100000011111000000000011000000000000010000 00001000000001000001000000110000000100000001100001100000010000000000110001000011 00000000000000011001100000000000001100010000110000000001100001100000010000000100 00001000000001000001000000011000000001000100000000110000000010001000000000100000 00100000100000001000000010000000100000000000011000000000110000000011000000000100 01110101100000000000100000001000000000000001000001111100000000000010000101110100 10110110000001001110010011111110111000011100000110111000000000101000001110110010 00000101000001111110010000001010000011000000100000110110000000000000000000000000 00000000001110000010000000000000011101010001010101010100111000000000101010100000 00000000000101000000000000001111100000000000000001111111110000000000001110000000 11100000000011000000000001100000001101000000000101100000110011000000011001100001 00010100000101000100001000100100010010001000000001000101000100000000000010000100 0010000000000001000000000100000000000000100101000000000001111001111101001111000
1679 is 23 times 73. These are prime numbers therefore it would seem reasonable to think of the Arecibo message as 23 groups of 73 characters or as 73 groups of 23 characters.

The binary message may be transferred to graph paper, by leaving a square blank if the number is "0" and filling in a square if the number is "1." Starting in the upper right corner and working from right to left going down the page you can decode the 23 by 73 character message and the 73 by 23 character message.

taken from