Search for ET??

[nightfisher]

A bit of niggle with me,  but the leaders of this green globe seem to spend huge amounts in the search for ET, mainly sending radio signals into space...............but if i remember correctly radio frequencies travel a lot slower than light, and the nearest area of space likely to harbour life forms is aprox 1400 light years away, so a radio signal would take maybe 2000 years to reach a receiver and a reply if sent would take a similar time to return, so we have roughly 4000 year return trip................i wonder why we bother? 

[reddoss]

Hi Jules, radio waves do travel at the speed of light

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_wave

[johnrt]

Radio waves are electromagnetic radiation, and therefore travel at the speed of light in a vacuum.

**edit beaten to it **

[nightfisher]

Sorry my mistake, i was thinking on the lines of speed of sound versus speed of light, so that makes it a 2800 year round trip

[ronin]

The idea is not I suspect send a signal, wait for a reply, it is just sit and hope to hear something.

So if a technological society on a planet 50 light years away transmitted something 50 years ago then it will get here about now.

The problem will be identifing it as a transmission of some sort and not just weird noise amongst the other noise. A TV signal is only in effect a signal if the receiving end can recognise it as a signal. I am not aware if we are transmitting a signal saying "Here we are". We are chucking out a lot but it will likely appear as noise, something like a repeating signal of the first 10 primary numbers in binary format has a chance of recognition.

[Tinker1947]

I think the figure of £68 million was mentioned, you could say a job for life and beyond....i wonder what they do after all the signals are sent....

[kalasinman]

The assumption that anything interesting would be 1400 light years off is a wild stab in the dark based on imperfect understanding of the limited knowledge we have today. We've gotten this far in the relatively short cosmological age of this solar system. There are systems around red dwarfs that could be only a few billion years younger than the universe itself. How far will have advanced (assuming no self destruction) in say another 5 billion years?

We know a little about 5% of the matter in the universe, we have theories about another 20%, the rest, we have no idea.

Not just transmitting, but listening seems worth it. Steven Hawking thinks enough of it to help sponsor a major search. He seems like a pretty smart guy...

[wuthton]

We should be putting much more time, money and effort in space exploration and particularly manned space exploration.

But.. I'm with Jules. Spending 68 million on trying to contact ET by radio is a spectacular waste of money. If Tutankhamun had sent a radio message we'd most likely still be waiting for a reply.

[LukeSkywatcher]

i wonder why we bother? 

Simple answer is because we can and as a species we are naturally very curious animals. Nothing ventured........nothing gained.

I'm ALL for "leaving the outside light on" and if one day there is a reply................

 

[Alien 13]

Who knows what might come from this apart from messages from LGM there could be other discoveries made (remember the pulsar) so for me its all good.

Alan

[HD-AP]

We should be putting much more time, money and effort in space exploration and particularly manned space exploration.

But.. I'm with Jules. Spending 68 million on trying to contact ET by radio is a spectacular waste of money. If Tutankhamun had sent a radio message we'd most likely still be waiting for a reply.

I agree 

And we would also all be riding around on panther motorcycles

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Considering how much money we waste as a species on things like, football players, uneaten food, bottled water, undeployable weapons systems (and arguably the deployable ones are even worse...), Veranda Blend frappuccinos and Britney Spears albums I wouldn't hold up SETI as exhibit A. In the unlikely event that we did receive some sort of signal it would forever change our perspective on the universe. But the thing about SETI is no signal is still a result, putting some constraints on how common broadcasting civilisations could be.

There's no bigger question than how common or rare life is in the universe, and I can certainly support spending a small fraction of our global budget on projects that investigate this.

[Mr Spock]

The only way we advance as a species is to explore, discover and learn new things.

It does no good to sit there and say 'why bother' or, 'I know all I need to know'. Imagine if some of the great pioneers in history had thought that; we might still be in the dark ages.

[glowjet]

Homo Sapiens have an inquiring mind, or else we would not be where we are to-day. As we have begun to understand more of what lies beyond the earth, the big question, are there similar worlds that exist that could support life? I don't doubt that there will always be funds made available to support any endeavour to find an answer, but it will be like looking for a pin head in the Brazilian rain forest

[kalasinman]

I believe that current models allow for the existence of  solar systems similar to ours at least 6 billion years older than Earth. I f we assume that the development of intelligence in 4 billion years is average, there could easily be large numbers of civilizations with a 2+ billion year head start on us.

We're less than a millennia past the point where we communicated with the written word, smoke signals and the drum. Given even a fraction of a billion years further development, we will surely have something better than radio. So why would we assume those a billion years or more advanced would be communicating the same as we?

With a solar system loaded with resources and unoccupied territory, space colonization seems a certainty in a couple hundred years. What then about another billion?

What if others had a version of the prime directive?

[recceranger]

There has been a lot about this reference the costs and funding. In much the same way people will always criticise the expenditure on Apollo.

Here are the facts;

Over the decade that was Apollo $120 Billion (and loose change!) was spent on Apollo. Of that the economic return was $7 back into U.S. economy for every $1 spent. Not a bad investment.

However, in human terms what an achievement - courageous, dramatic, expeditionary and inspirational.

Now, during the same decade the U.S. poured $120 Billion into another venture - Vietnam. 66,000 service personnel lost, a relatively small number compared to the over 1,000,000 civilians that perished. The net result, global humiliation, government collapse, national embarrassment, isolationism and generation guilt.

I think pouring money into any branch of space exploration gets my vote and SETI are a worthy branch. Well done to the decision makers

[HD-AP]

Seti

Asks a simple question .Are we alone in the universe  .Answer ............................................0000001 ????

[astro mick]

There is an interesting article in Saturdays Telegraph,where the writers view is that we are alone in this vast Universe.

Now I for one would like to think that this is not the case,but his reasoning is that in all the years we have been monitoring,we have not heard or detected any sign at all of other life.

I can understand his point of view,and of course,unless we discover to the contrary he may be right.To imagine that the planet we call Earth is the most important body in this vast Universe,is well beyond imagination.

We really should look after mother Earth.

Mick.

[HD-AP]

Would a microbe in a petrie dish or  on a slide under a microscope have the same view ,would it even know it was being observed ,likewise how do we know we arn't ?

Is a microbe capable of thought or intelligence ,semantics ?

We observe the universe in a very narrow electromagnetic spectrum ,make rules and laws that must be right  and absolute ,well they are from our perspective .

Do any of us want to talk or communicate with the drunk on a bus on a saturday night ,well higher intelligences might view us in a simular light ,ie why would they want to .

The likelyhood is that any contact would be not with an organic lifeform ,given the vast interstellar distances involved ,contact would probably be machine based ,in which case we have a problem ,they would probably not drop in to say hi ,but more likely to be research based or recsource based ,so we would be an energy source  or subject for study and or experimentation .

To quote what happens when this scenario occurs ?

As it's a machine .it can't be bargained with ,it can't be reasoned with ,it dosen't feel pity ,or remorse ,or fear ,and it absolutely will not stop until your dead .

As any intelligence capable of getting here are likely to be technologically superior to us ,and why would they be ,we come in peace types i would hope they were ,but they would probably not be .

So perhaps we should be a little cautious about announcing our prescence to what may be out there ??

[luna]

Two points:

Firstly, can I assume that SETI uses the 21cm hydrogen line to detect intelligent life, in the hope that they think like us! I.e. Hydrogen is the most abundant element; that the 21cm wavelength in its spectral line in the most prominent.

Secondly, we have had radio technology for about a hundred years. Let's assume that out civilisation survives for about 50,000 years (which is quite an overestimate considering our wars etc). The Earth began 4.5 billion years ago. The Sun will be a red giant in say 4.5 billion years time. So Earth exists for 9 billion years. That means in the life of the Earth we exist for about 0.00056% of Earth's existence. That's a very small window of opportunity for intelligent life to 'catch' us just ar the right time.

[recceranger]

Luna,

That's tip top analysis my friend

[JamesF]

Considering how much money we waste as a species on things like, football players, uneaten food, bottled water, undeployable weapons systems (and arguably the deployable ones are even worse...), Veranda Blend frappuccinos and Britney Spears albums I wouldn't hold up SETI as exhibit A. In the unlikely event that we did receive some sort of signal it would forever change our perspective on the universe. But the thing about SETI is no signal is still a result, putting some constraints on how common broadcasting civilisations could be.

Very much this.

The amount of money we waste (and I'd like to put that far more strongly if the CoC would let me) as a society on things of absolutely no credible value whatsoever (and many of "negative value") beggars belief.  What gets spent on exploring space isn't in the same ballpark.  It's not even on the same land mass.

Although I have no clue what a Veranda Blend frappuccino is.  I suspect that might have been made up.  If it wasn't, I don't want to know, ok?

James

[nightfisher]

I dont question the amount of money the world as a whole actually spends on these projects, just the pure futile nature of all this, dont get me wrong, i would love to find that scientists had discovered life out there, i just dont see it happening.

But as a few people have posted, we are a species with an inquiring nature and at least these projects spawn new technology 

[kalasinman]

I dont question the amount of money the world as a whole actually spends on these projects, just the pure futile nature of all this, dont get me wrong, i would love to find that scientists had discovered life out there, i just dont see it happening.

But as a few people have posted, we are a species with an inquiring nature and at least these projects spawn new technology 

Based on what we currently know, I'd say the discovery of some form of life in our solar system is 50% or better and will happen in under 20 years.

As far as intelligent life, they may discover us. The more we know about the content of comets and asteroids which bounce around the galaxy quite freely is that life is probably seeding itself all over. It appears that Earth was wiped clean at least once by a major impact and that the materials that bounced up into space from the impact debris fell back to earth and re-seeded it. Likewise the Earth and Mars have been trading the building blocks of life for a long time. Scientific discoveries over the years have caused the odds for XT life to rise dramatically rather than lessen.

[Alien 13]

I often feel advanced civilisations knowing the limits of very slow light speed for comunication would think of something better perhaps sending out masses of comet like objects with information coded into the organic chemistry so that any that seeds intelegent life delivers the message too.

Alan