Later this month, scientists will start sending the first continuous mass hailing beacon into outer space — a sort of “Hey, you! Yeah, you! Here we are!” message that researchers hope will attract the attention of any intelligent life that happens to exist in the Universe. They’re aiming it at the Gliese 526 system, about 17.6 light years away. It’s worth noting that this is different than Gliese 581, a system you probably remember hearing about from the search for Earth-like planets. The two systems aren’t even closely related. The name comes from a 1957 survey of (relatively) nearby stars.