When All Else Fails

Signal

July 4th, 2076,
Freedom, America celebrates now it's 300th year of independence. Pretty big deal for the most powerful nation in the world. Very few people are working at this time of day, the sky just started to turn to its beautiful night shade and fireworks burst with a shade violet on this Side and a neon green on the other. Freedom, that's all that anyone ever truly wants and needs.
I am an astrophysicist working for NASA. I help astronomers study and evaluate the great cosmos and its infinite beauty of wonder. Ever since the first telescopes were created and used, citizens of our civilization wondered if we really are the only ones out there. Is it possible for other intelligent life to exist on other planets in other universes in other solar systems with the proper amount of carbon, and water to sustain life? Is it possible that we are not the only planet out there that sustains and form of life?
July 3rd, 2076,
All these years I've spent in this field and all this time I've had one favorite event to study out in the cosmos. Dying stars. As a star uses up all the recourses provided to it to maintain its immense amount of energy is creates, is begins to die. The second the last little molecule of fuel is used up, the dying star can go one of many ways. Depending on size and and energy levels, a star can explode, first condensing to a size many many times smaller than it was before, condensing, putting together atom with atom, molecule with molecule, to form new elements, heavier elements such as silver and gold, then when it cannot condense any more, it explodes, leaving behind a trail of incredible beauty of colors, painting away at the nothingness in space that is dark matter. It may also condense and form what is called a dwarf star. The star would condense and condense and condense until it glows a brilliant blue and takes up as much space as the baseball in your garage. The density of this dead star is so tremendous, setting it down on the earth's crust would be enough for it to tear through and make a hole straight down to the core. Pulsars are condensed dwarf stars that emit photons of light from each of its opposite poles. These photons travel through the space axis but not the time axis. Seeing one photon beam travel is impossible. The second it is realessed, it is already at its final destination. Last but not least, there are finally black holes. Space's most studied and yet most mysterious occurrence. We know not of what a black hole does, we know it just take whatever goes through it, somewhere else. It bends both light and time at the same time. What else is it capable of, we may never find out.
In the 1960's and 70's, as America's satellite and space technology was advancing with every day to come, NASA sent out a message on one of the worlds first satellites. A message to any intelligent life form outside of earth, to intercept and reply back. In the 1990's, signals were received from a distant solar system. The message was coded in a complex language that researchers spent ages on trying to decode.
Today, a new signal was received...