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.
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.
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.
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
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.
“The Drake Equation includes 7 variables.”
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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...
As soon as we find them the democrats will invite them to America and put them on government assistance.
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...................
And voter registration rolls...........(D) of course...............
Yeah, it doesn’t seem to.
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!
Bingo!
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
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
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.
Exactly.
And as long as they don't know we have chocolate, why would anyone out there be interested in contacting us?
They aren’t there.
Though I would point out that the galactic center is generally very radioactive. Not a hospitable place.
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