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."
Thanks for the encouragement. :)
In my guess, I made the assumption that whether the mirror is moving away or towards us doesn't make a difference since "the mirror is located 1/2 light year away when the signal bounces from it."
Quite right. I had forgotten that.
I'm sure someone on Free Republic will be able to solve it.
By the way, when the astronomers said that they would find an ET signal within 25 years, how did they come up with the estimation of 25 years? Why not 5, or 10, or 50, or 100, or something else?
The reason could be part money, part science, and part wild guessing, maybe. It's beyond my knowledge as to whether the SETI program will actually accomplish something, or whether it will miss something significant. That's about all I have to say on it now.
If RadioAstronomer gets this ping, he can give you a better answer than anyone else, because he works in SETI (a privately-funded project). My guess is that they estimate it will take that long with existing technology to conduct the searches of the areas and frequencies that they want to explore.
But it does make a difference. This is because in the frame of the moving observer, the distance between the two events (signal transmission and signal reception) is different, and the time between them is also different. (For a signal moving faster than c, the time ordering of the events may even be reversed.) For a signal propagating at the speed of light, these changes work out such that the speed of the signal is invariant for the two observers, but that's the only velocity for which that can be arranged. Anything moving faster or slower than c will have different velocities with respect to the two observers.
Oh, boo hoo. Poor innocent you. Here you are being a shining example of innocent reasonableness, when for some strange reason, we all gang up on you out of the blue.
I wonder how this group delusion got started--h'mm--lets look at your previous posts. Aha--I think I've got it.
I recommend a quick review of Emily Post, or developing a thicker skin before deciding to sound off around here.
Put a hat on it, and nobody will notice.
Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us
by Jim Marrs, 1998
Unconventional Flying Objects: A Scientific Analysis
by Paul R. Hill, Richard M. Wood, 1995
Wow, that narrows the field somewhat ;)
Well, they are entertaining anyway. And sometimes that's just what I need after a difficult day in the lab. :)
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