“The Magellan and Pioneer space probes near Venus have reported through radar imagery (or radio-based imaging) that “snow” on the surface of Venus contains large quantities of lead sulphide. It is not hard to imagine a situation that certain geological tracts of this metallic snow act as a coherer in the presence of radio waves from outer space, clumping together to mark forever the arrival of a message from distant stars, like an interstellar telegraph in Morse Code. Two years before Karl Jansky’s discovery of the cosmic radiophony, Hart Crane wrote in the poem Cape Hatteras:
“And from above, thin squeaks of radio static,
The captured fume of space foams in our ears —
What whisperings of far watches on the main
Relapsing into silence, while time clears
Our lenses, lifts a focus, resurrects
A periscope –””




