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."
Not at all. The fact is that I intended no snideness at any point. In fact, reviewing what I wrote, I don't even see how you could read snideness into it. But no matter: I'm sorry you took it ill. That was never my intention.
Grammar is irrelevant but I think you have to choose between "those who" and "them as." (He said snidely.) ;)
You've got a serious leak. But, seriously, I bet you have no way of making me care what your problem is.
You've been quietly offering/threatening to commit meltdown hara kiri on this forum for some days now. You have clearance to proceed.
You said I was wrong (about exactly what, only you could know) in your first reply to me here, compared it to science fiction, then proceeded into a nonsequitur where you get Bob moving really fast. I guess I should congratulate you on not slacking off from that initial pace.
Perhaps we should all leave you alone for the next month while you get over the sulkies?
That would be reply #151. I still see nothing incorrect or insulting about it. If I misunderstood the comment I was responding to, I'm sorry (if we could each have a dime for each time that happened on FR, we'd all be rich) but in that case it would have been more helpful if you'd clarified yourself, rather than lapsing into too-subtle-by-half petulance.
Bob is going slower than light. If he's far enough away, and the signal is fast enough, he can be going as slowly as you like.
Thanks
What you said was that in your understanding, FTL effects need not lead to causality violations. What I was attempting to show (to the interested reader, whether or not that describes you) was that FTL communications do indeed imply the violation of causality, and not in some abstract, technical, "on-paper" sense (which is what I thought you meant by a "Feynman-Wheeler" sense), but in a practical, technologically exploitable ("Finney-Wells") sense. So strong is the connection between the speed of light and causality that in physics papers the terms "faster than light" and "causality violating" are used interchangeably.
Ah yes, of course. Well, this is indeed a deep subject for you, and it has been a fascinating conversation. Have a good night.
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