Posted on 01/26/2010 7:48:50 AM PST by JoeProBono
EARTH is becoming "invisible" to aliens, the world's leading ET hunter claimed yesterday. Dr Frank Drake said transmission of signals into space was being cut by the digital revolution.
As a result, any little green men on other planets would not be able to detect them.
Dr Drake said Earth was surrounded by a 50 light year-wide "shell" of radiation from analogue TV, radio and radar transmissions. The signals had spread far enough to reach nearby star systems but are vanishing.
He explained that while old-style TV transmissions could generate one million watts, digital transmissions are much weaker.
And satellites aim their transmissions to Earth - with almost none being allowed to escape into space.
Dr Drake said: "Now the actual amount of radiation escaping is about two watts, not much more than you get from a cell phone.
"If this continues into the future, very soon our world will become undetectable."
Dr Drake said he believed that intelligent life DOES exist beyond Earth.
He reckoned alien civilisations were likely to be far more advanced than ours and that their analogue TV age probably went long ago. That in turn means that the world's search for their signals is that much harder.
Dr Drake - who founded US-based organisation SETI (Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence) 50 years ago - told a meeting at The Royal Society in London: "We're going to have to search many more stars and many more frequencies."
“Google search”????
I have 25+ years at the RF job. I, for one, don’t need a google search to tell me about RF engineering and digital communications. You do.
“Digital” communications ride on an RF carrier wave that is analogue, even when frequency hopping. In fact, there is no such thing as a digital electronic part. Digital is a form of description of an analogue technique. All digital components are made from analogue parts.
I call BS that you are an engineer.
Good, we’re no match for anyone that can cross interstellar space.
Doesn’t matter, we’ll make first contact with the vulcans in 2069 when Zefram Cochran makes his first transwarp flight.
Sounds like the two cannibals who passed their brother on the trail......
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