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Latest Search For Alien Civilizations Looked At 60 Million Stars, Detects No Signals
https://www.iflscience.com ^ | 05 MAY 2021 | Staff

Posted on 05/05/2021 12:11:03 PM PDT by Red Badger

Are there aliens out there? Based on statistics alone, the answer should be a resounding yes. The Milky Way has at least 100 billion stars and the vast majority of these have planets orbiting them. But while the numbers are on our side, evidence remains lacking.

The Breakthrough Listen project has delivered the first results of its massive new SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) survey in search of alien civilizations. And when we say massive, we mean massive. The observations looked at 60 million stars towards the galactic center, a region where stars are more tightly packed. By looking at quite a small but busy portion of the sky, astronomers can study lots of worlds.

The team collected 600 hours of data using the Green Bank Radio Telescope in West Virginia and CSIRO’s Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia, detailing the observations in a paper accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal.

The team did not find any signals, but it's important to note that they were looking at purposely emitted signals, known as technosignatures – optical or microwave signals, laser emissions, even "megastructures" – in this search; some sort of alien beacon that says “Hey, we are here!” or given the distances involved, “Hey, we were here thousands of years ago!”

A search for a radio emission that has not been sent out on purpose requires a lot more work. The team uses the expression “eavesdropping on the leakage radiation.” While science fiction often focuses on the potential for TV transmissions to be the primary signal, from Earth the biggest leakage is actually from airport radar. So perhaps future searches will spot these kinds of signals rather than a transmission of Real Housewives of Zeta Reticuli Prime.

While the survey didn’t find aliens, it does push the envelope on what it can be achieved when it comes to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. “We compared the sensitivity of our survey to some of the prominent SETI surveys and demonstrate that our survey has remarkable sensitivity with a frequency span never before explored for SETI,” the authors conclude in their paper.

There is no one way to look for alien life but searching for technosignatures is one in which humanity has placed a lot of hope for discovery as these signals might be easier to spot than discovering particular molecules in the atmosphere of distant planets, known as biosignatures.

Alien life may even be found in simple structures closer to home; in the deep oceans of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, or maybe even on Mars.


TOPICS: Astronomy; History; Outdoors; Science
KEYWORDS:
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To: wildcard_redneck
we are as dumb as a sack of hammers

That is an easily defined term--any civilization that lives above ground and cannot successfully defend their planet against asteroid strikes is, by definition, dumb as a sack of hammers, and is not gonna last for long....
21 posted on 05/05/2021 12:28:37 PM PDT by cgbg (A kleptocracy--if they can keep it. Think of it as the Cantillon Effect in action.)
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To: cgbg

Thanks; I learned something new.

The experimental results quoted in the Wikipedia article seem to suggest the most people want to think of themselves as more average than they are. Incompetent people judged themselves more competent, and competent people judged themselves less so. Blending in is a good survival strategy.


22 posted on 05/05/2021 12:30:51 PM PDT by rightwingcrazy (;-,)
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To: al baby
I thought she was pretty foxy.

Also, that wireless (bluetooth?) earpiece is something else Gene Roddenberry got right. A little too big, but so were the memory sticks that Spock sometimes plugged into a computer terminal to check something.

23 posted on 05/05/2021 12:31:56 PM PDT by Steely Tom ([Voter Fraud] == [Civil War])
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To: Red Badger

Berserkers kill anything that makes itself known or something just points a gamma ray burst at the cockroaches when they get themselves noticed.

Or everyone invariably falls into a virtual reality hole when they become technologically advanced enough.

I once read a story with the premise that the aliens were shocked we created all these natural explanations for things like quasars and pulsars. “What do you mean you thought you were alone? Didn’t you see our beacons?!

Freegards


24 posted on 05/05/2021 12:32:41 PM PDT by Ransomed
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To: Seruzawa

Maybe radio is a short lived technology as civilizations advance. The telegraph and smoke signals have largely fallen by the wayside. Quantum entanglement might render radio transmission as a thing of the past.


25 posted on 05/05/2021 12:34:56 PM PDT by Sirius Lee (They intend to murder us. Prep if you want to live and live like you are prepping for eternal life)
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To: rightwingcrazy

“The Drake Equation includes 7 variables.”

************************************************************

Does one of the variables account solely for the length of time estimate for a lifeless inorganic speck to magically become alive? That one always stumps me...


26 posted on 05/05/2021 12:35:31 PM PDT by Sir Bangaz Cracka (Slamming dat white cracka'a head into dat sidewalk causin he be scared)
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To: Seruzawa

Plan 9 was more real than we thought. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhvDMhrws1o


27 posted on 05/05/2021 12:36:19 PM PDT by xp38
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To: cgbg
No worries. We're Made Of Meat
28 posted on 05/05/2021 12:36:39 PM PDT by Joe Brower ("Might we not live in a nobler dream than this?" -- John Ruskin)
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To: Red Badger

As soon as we find them the democrats will invite them to America and put them on government assistance.


29 posted on 05/05/2021 12:36:41 PM PDT by Ironfocus (Texas! MAGA!)
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To: Ransomed

In the Carl Sagan novel “Contact” (not the stupid movie), the aliens tell the earth visitors that quasars are them doing experiments on how to keep the universe from collapsing...................


30 posted on 05/05/2021 12:36:54 PM PDT by Red Badger (Jesus said there is no marriage in Heaven. That's why they call it Heaven.....................)
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To: Ironfocus

And voter registration rolls...........(D) of course...............


31 posted on 05/05/2021 12:37:26 PM PDT by Red Badger (Jesus said there is no marriage in Heaven. That's why they call it Heaven.....................)
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To: Sir Bangaz Cracka

Yeah, it doesn’t seem to.


32 posted on 05/05/2021 12:37:28 PM PDT by rightwingcrazy (;-,)
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To: Ransomed
"Or everyone invariably falls into a virtual reality hole when they become technologically advanced enough."

The Great Filter. When civilizations become technologically advanced enough to extinguish themselves, the vast majority do so. Humankind as a species has been at that point for over half a century, and the jury's still out on that one.

Those races that can surpass their animal origins and grow beyond themselves would advance to a point where they could easily keep themselves hidden. And probably do so. It's a jungle out there!

33 posted on 05/05/2021 12:40:13 PM PDT by Joe Brower ("Might we not live in a nobler dream than this?" -- John Ruskin)
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To: SuperLuminal

Bingo!


34 posted on 05/05/2021 12:46:19 PM PDT by Fungi
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To: Red Badger

No, it wasn’t that because I’ve never read Sagan’s fiction. I think it might have been John C Wright, who came around much later.

Freegards


35 posted on 05/05/2021 12:52:39 PM PDT by Ransomed
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To: Joe Brower

It’s all conjecture when you have an example of exactly one to work with, namely us. It’s fun to speculate though.

I’m betting virtual reality just becomes too tempting to resist when it gets really good. I base this upon my scientific observations of people walking into traffic while looking at their phones.

Freegards


36 posted on 05/05/2021 12:53:19 PM PDT by Ransomed
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To: Red Badger

Maybe aliens don’t broadcast on the same frequencies we use.

Suppose you have an old fashioned AM transistor radio. It cannot pick up FM radio signals.

And this presupposes that aliens would use radio frequencies in the first place. Maybe advanced aliens communicate in some other manner that we can’t conceive of.


37 posted on 05/05/2021 1:04:02 PM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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To: Joe Brower
Science fiction writers have done a lot of deep thinking on what advanced civilizations would be like, and there are some clear general patterns:

--Animal bodies = gone--too fragile, life span too short, risk of predators, etc etc

--Above ground or visible structures--gone--subject to surface weather, meteor strikes, hostile alien contact, etc etc

--Radio signals--long gone, discussed above...

Better possibilities: --Merging intelligence with the very large (planet, for example) or the very small (subatomic, for example)

--Communication through true "web" connecting individual minds--invisible, no radio signals--probably underground if physical infrastructure required

--Merger of intelligence with transportation, so "spaceships" would actually be some type of living entity

--Manipulation of space/time with wormholes or "gates" or some other to be discovered variation.

--Wide dispersion throughout galaxy so if one part was destroyed, the rest could learn and survive.

--Primitives like humans could be studied like we study animals. The best approach would be to disguise themselves as non-threatening, non-intelligent parts of the environment (trees, mountains, etc).

--Nanotechnology creates anything from anything without leaving a trace.

etc etc
38 posted on 05/05/2021 1:10:21 PM PDT by cgbg (A kleptocracy--if they can keep it. Think of it as the Cantillon Effect in action.)
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To: DannyTN
They should try looking at planets not stars.

Exactly.

And as long as they don't know we have chocolate, why would anyone out there be interested in contacting us?

39 posted on 05/05/2021 1:10:40 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Red Badger

They aren’t there.

Though I would point out that the galactic center is generally very radioactive. Not a hospitable place.


40 posted on 05/05/2021 1:26:33 PM PDT by JamesP81 (The Democrat Party is a criminal organization.)
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