I don't understand the focus of the article being on sending a physical probe. Why not just send a radio message? Something like "Is there anybody out there?"
I've heard the argument that we shouldn't advertise our existence in case there are hostile beings. But can't we assume that all intelligent life is constrained by the same rules of physics? And why assume hostile?
The round trip time for such a message would be 9.0 year, so getting our signal discovered, and getting it mutually intelligible, could easily never happen, even if there was life there.
I've heard the argument that we shouldn't advertise our existence in case there are hostile beings. But can't we assume that all intelligent life is constrained by the same rules of physics? And why assume hostile?