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.
The reason broadcasting went digital is that it transmits information more efficiently. It also means any alien signal is going to look like noise because of that.
The biggest misconception in science. The odds that life could have randomly developed on earth are so astronomically huge that for all intents they are zero. In fact that odds that life could have randomly appeared in this UNIVERSE are so huge that science has had to create the multiverse theory to explain it.
So quoting the number of stars implies that gee with so many stars life HAD to develop elsewhere. Nope. There was only one way life appeared on earth: The universe was created for it. Man, and earth, really are the center of the universe. We were created specifically by God.
Maybe they lower the volume at night.
You can have AM and FM on any frequency and other modes as well.
Hurray! You get it! The fact that there are so many chances for alien life and there aren’t any is itself a miracle in its significance.
Ever get the feeling that we are all alone? Einstein said it best when he said there may be others out there, but if they are, we will never know. I tend to agree.
True, but we have made progress.
When I was young the idea of planets outside the solar system was conjecture, but now we have a good guess at how common they are.
Good point! We must keep chocolate secret or we are doomed.
I agree. The galactic center has the highest concentration of ionizing radiation.
Chaos Theory is a branch of mathematics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
It explains how the impossible can become possible.
We do live in a universe of miracles....
It is more likely that, IF, there were advanced civilizations out sending signals we’re just too stupid to know where, what and how to look for them.
My theory is all of those possible planets that did have higher life forms never got to the technology of creating the radio. They destroyed each other before they progressed. I guess they never got Christ.
Latest Search For Alien Civilizations Looked At 60 Million Stars, Detects No One Using Radio Signals To Communicate.
1920s technology strikes out again.
Only stupid civilizations want themselves to be discovered. When one looks how species operate one can easily see that the “Independence Day” scenario is much more likely than the “Day The Earth Stood Still” one.
The idea that technologically advanced civilizations would be kinder than less advanced ones has no basis in observation.
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See Cixin Liu’s “Dark Forest”, book two of the Three Body Problem” series. This is the corollary to Fermi’s Paradox “Where is every body?”
Also see Stephen Hawking warning:
https://www.sciencealert.com/stephen-hawking-warns-that-we-might-not-want-to-reach-out-to-aliens
60 million stars? There are 3 billion stars just in this galaxy alone.
Greg Bear’s novels “The Forge of God” and “Anvil of Stars” are based on those concepts.
I think you’re right. With super-massive black holes clustered within the core of our galaxy emitting deadly amounts of radiation, it isn’t likely that they’ll find much.
Not exactly - The Dark Forest Theory goes way beyond Forge and Anvil. If an alien civilization attacked openly, then they are revealing their existence and will be destroyed in turn by someone else hidden via a casual attack - a causal attack is one that does not reveal point of origin nor who launched it, but utterly obliterates the revealed civilization.
Where is everybody? They are all hiding for their own self preservation from competitors; revealing one’s existence in any regard is a form of suicide.
To quote Dr. Fermi, “so, where are they?”
No hoof beats after 60 years and millions of hours of listening? They ain’t there bro.
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