Posted on 07/16/2002 7:40:55 AM PDT by Momaw Nadon
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Scientists searching the stars for aliens are convinced an E.T. is out there -- it's just that they haven't had the know-how to detect such a being.
But now technological advances have opened the way for scientists to check millions of previously unknown star systems, dramatically increasing the chances of finding intelligent life in outer space in the next 25 years, the world's largest private extraterrestrial agency believes.
"We're looking for needles in the haystack that is our galaxy, but there could be thousands of needles out there," Seth Shostak, the senior astronomer at California's non-profit Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence ( news - web sites) (SETI) Institute, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
"If that's the case, with the number of new star systems we now hope to check, we should find one of those in the next 25 years."
But Shostak, visiting Australia to attend a conference on extraterrestrial research, said detecting alien life, like the big-eyed alien in the film E.T., was only the start.
"Even if we detect life out there, we'll still know nothing about what form of life we have detected and I doubt they'll be able -- or want -- to communicate with us," Shostak said.
Since it was founded in 1984, the SETI Institute has monitored radio signals, hoping to pick up a transmission from outer space. Its Project Phoenix conducts two annual three-week sessions on a radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
Project Phoenix, widely seen as the inspiration for the 1997 film "Contact" starring Jodie Foster, which depicted a search for life beyond earth, is the privately funded successor to an original NASA ( news - web sites) program that was canceled in 1993 amid much skepticism by the U.S. Congress.
But the search has been slow. About 500 of 1,000 targeted stars have been examined -- and no extraterrestrial transmissions have been detected.
E.T. NOT ON THE LINE
"We do get signals all the time but when checked out they have all been human made...and are not from E.T., more AT&T," said Shostak.
He said the privately-funded institute was developing a giant US$26 million telescope to start operating in 2005 that can search the stars for signals at least 100 times faster.
The so-called Allen Telescope Array, named after sponsor and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, is a network of more than 350, six-meter (20-foot) satellite dishes with a collecting area exceeding that of a 100-meter (338-foot) telescope.
The Allen array, to be built at the Hat Creek Observatory about 290 miles northeast of San Fransciso, will also expand the institute's stellar reconnaissance to 100,000 or even one million nearby stars, searching 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Shostak said he is convinced there is intelligent life out there -- but don't expect to find a loveable, boggle-eyed E.T..
He said if any aliens share the same carbon-based organic chemistry as humans, they would probably have a central processing system, eyes, a mouth or two, legs and some form of reproduction.
But Shostak thinks any intelligent extraterrestrial life will have gone light years beyond the intelligence of man.
"What we are more likely to hear will be so far beyond our own level that it might not be biological anymore but some artificial form of life," he said. "Don't expect a blobby, squishy alien to be on the end of the line."
Aren't you being both presumptious and arrogant by implying that He should have to tell anything beyond what He chose to say to mankind? Do you believe that He has shared with humankind all the secrets of His creations?
You bet, as some could even be much larger and better than Earth, with near perfect climates, with almost endless resources. Some could be slightly cooler for those that prefer cool climates, and some warmer, for those that like hotter climates.
Many will resemble our earth's Death Valley with atmospheres of cyanide, and many will look like Antarctica, but you can bet, there will be some that are truly a paradise for humans.
Being hundreds of millions of light years away, no on earth has a clue what is there, and it's my opinion and belief, that there is not only life, by life beyond our wildest imaginations.
No, in a Jack Finney-H.G. Wells sort of way. OBAFGKM already showed you that if Alice sends an FTL signal (event "A") to an observer Bob (event "B"), and Bob is travelling towards Alice sufficiently fast, event "B" will occur before event "A" in Bob's frame. That means that in Bob's frame, his line of simultaneity intersects Alice's location at an earlier time than she sent it. So if Bob bounces this FTL signal back to Alice, it will arrive at her location before she actually sent it.
What nonsense!
Perhaps someone already IS trying to get our attention..
Click on the images below for details
Don't you believe the Book of Genesis?
This is bolstered by our position in the cooler, older outer arms of the Milky Way.
I'll be looking...
Because he too assumed that there was little chance of life. And even more assumed that there was little chance of planets.
And our modern observations are proving planets are FAR more common than he thought.
Why are you assuming that other life must be Earthlike? What if it isn't?
Touché. I stand refuted.
Maybe HE didn't want us to know about the others, at least not 2000 and more years ago. He does things His way, not the way you might want Him too.
Also, even if the Good Book said that their were no other intelligent species other than those on earth, that doesn't mean that those who believe otherwise are atheists. They are just not believers in one of the big three middle eastern based monotheist religions.
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