SETI(Search for extraterrestrial intelligence) gets a $100-million boost

[Albert VDS]

Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner, along with the physicist Stephen Hawking, is announced his intentions to provide $100 million in funding over the next decade to top SETI researchers.

“We would typically get 24–36 hours on a telescope per year, but now we’ll have thousands of hours per year on the best instruments,†says one of the project leaders, Andrew Siemion, a SETI scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s difficult to overstate how big this is. It’s a revolution.â€Â

Watch the event here.

Search for extraterrestrial intelligence gets a $100-million boost

Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

[Frybert]

Didn't hawking claim ETs would be bad for us? Just who's side is he on?

[The Yellow Dart]

Yay! Gogetchasome aliens!

[rtxoff]

Waste of money.

[pincushionman]

Didn't hawking claim ETs would be bad for us? Just who's side is he on?

"I think it would be bad" =/= "I would not like to know"

[SciMan]

I agree, SETI is a waste of money... That is, until it finds alien life. And it will find evidence of intelligent alien life. It's not a matter of IF, but WHEN.

I'm not saying it'll happen for sure with this $100 million dollar investment. I'm saying if you search for alien life long enough, you're going to find it because tho Earth may be rare, it's certainly not unique in the entire observable universe.

There's simply too many galaxies, with too many stars, that have too many planets, for there to be ONLY ONE planet capable of supporting life in the entire observable universe.

And I'd bet that of those that do support life, there's far too many of them for there to be ONLY one planet that has intelligent life on it.

Earth can't be the ONLY planet that has or has had intelligent life on it at any point in the life of the observable universe to date.

The odds of that are unreasonably remote.

That means searching for other intelligent life will SEEM futile, but ultimately it's the closest you can get to a sure thing without outright stating "100% odds of success".

To assume otherwise would be extremely arrogant on the part of the entire human race.

Bottom line: Not a waste of money at all, but it'll probably take a very long time for the search to pay off.

EDIT: By "Very long time" I mean it'll probably take 200-300 years of searching before we find evidence of intelligent alien life. Non-intelligent alien life (single-cell plants/animals) will probably be found sooner, maybe even in my lifetime (I'm 27 years old).

Edited July 20, 2015 by SciMan

[NFUN]

I agree, SETI is a waste of money... That is, until it finds alien life. And it will find evidence of intelligent alien life. It's not a matter of IF, but WHEN.

I'm not saying it'll happen for sure with this $100 million dollar investment. I'm saying if you search for alien life long enough, you're going to find it because tho Earth may be rare, it's certainly not unique in the entire observable universe.

There's simply too many galaxies, with too many stars, that have too many planets, for there to be ONLY ONE planet capable of supporting life in the entire observable universe.

And I'd bet that of those that do support life, there's far too many of them for there to be ONLY one planet that has intelligent life on it.

Earth can't be the ONLY planet that has or has had intelligent life on it at any point in the life of the observable universe to date.

The odds of that are unreasonably remote.

That means searching for other intelligent life will SEEM futile, but ultimately it's the closest you can get to a sure thing without outright stating "100% odds of success".

To assume otherwise would be extremely arrogant on the part of the entire human race.

Bottom line: Not a waste of money at all, but it'll probably take a very long time for the search to pay off.

EDIT: By "Very long time" I mean it'll probably take 200-300 years of searching before we find evidence of intelligent alien life. Non-intelligent alien life (single-cell plants/animals) will probably be found sooner, maybe even in my lifetime (I'm 27 years old).

Just because intelligent alien life might be out there doesn't mean that SETI will be able to find it. Light dissipates quickly, and believing that SETI won't find life isn't necessarily arrogance, it could be realism.

[rtxoff]

While all of them might be listening no civilization is going to operate a continuous beacon strong enough to be detectable by others. The best example are we. We will never dedicate out resources in such a thing for many reasons.

SETI the way it is now is going to fail but maybe there are other ways to find evidence without listening for radio waves.

[Albert VDS]

While all of them might be listening no civilization is going to operate a continuous beacon strong enough to be detectable by others. The best example are we. We will never dedicate out resources in such a thing for many reasons.

SETI the way it is now is going to fail but maybe there are other ways to find evidence without listening for radio waves.

You are assuming that they would do the same as us. They key word here is alien, as in not from this Earth and thus having a high probability that they are different.

[Darnok]

Hahaha SETI started in 1959, still zero results yet they have 100.000.000$ for more research, and the only thing they can find is ALIEN civilization thousands or millions light years away and thousands or millions years old, possibly also dead civilization.

Meanwhile... if anyone says he has idea how to study ancient artefacts in search of thousands years old, more advanced and possible based on alien knowledge civilization...

he is crazy, pseudo-scientist

If you believe you can find alien radio waves, send accidentally by alien advanced race, you should join UFO fans, because those aliens would locate Earth as habitable planet hundreds of years ago and would send probes or come to study it personally.

[Technical Ben]

Didn't hawking claim ETs would be bad for us? Just who's side is he on?

Perhaps he changed sides... and is now working for them! Dun dun daaaa!

[Frybert]

Perhaps he changed sides... and is now working for them! Dun dun daaaa!

That's what I'm sayin, man!

[Scotius]

Hahaha SETI started in 1959, still zero results yet they have 100.000.000$ for more research, and the only thing they can find is ALIEN civilization thousands or millions light years away and thousands or millions years old, possibly also dead civilization.

Meanwhile... if anyone says he has idea how to study ancient artefacts in search of thousands years old, more advanced and possible based on alien knowledge civilization...

he is crazy, pseudo-scientist

If you believe you can find alien radio waves, send accidentally by alien advanced race, you should join UFO fans, because those aliens would locate Earth as habitable planet hundreds of years ago and would send probes or come to study it personally.

Obviously you've never seen an Unindentified Flying Obiect.

[Albert VDS]

Hahaha SETI started in 1959, still zero results yet they have 100.000.000$ for more research, and the only thing they can find is ALIEN civilization thousands or millions light years away and thousands or millions years old, possibly also dead civilization.

Meanwhile... if anyone says he has idea how to study ancient artefacts in search of thousands years old, more advanced and possible based on alien knowledge civilization...

he is crazy, pseudo-scientist

If you believe you can find alien radio waves, send accidentally by alien advanced race, you should join UFO fans, because those aliens would locate Earth as habitable planet hundreds of years ago and would send probes or come to study it personally.

If you compare where we have looked and how big the universe actually is then we can come to the conclusion that we haven't started to search yet. In 2016 SETI is going to search per day what they did in one year.

Of course the outcome could be that the found signal is from a dead civilization, but it could as easily be alive or evolved into a whole different species.

But even if they are extinct it would still give the answer to the most important question of all: "Are we alone?".

Your second sentence doesn't make any sense... could you try to rephrase it?

In your last sentence you are assuming that Earth is a honey pot for any Aliens, that it's one of the best candidate for aliens to settle on, that they invented a significant form of space travel and that they can thrive on our planet.

[AngelLestat]

I am agree that is a waste of money..

The universe is full of live... but find an intelligence life form (close to our same technology) in our close neighborhood which can receive our radio signals and they care to answer, is very unlikely.

More unlikely is try to intercept signals from a higher tech civilization, because for sure they comunicate in a very different way, we can not be sure what we will use as comunication in only 100 years.

Also each time I am more convinced that once we reach the singularity, every will change in matter of few years or maybe days.

After that, an IA or "us" will find almost all about the universe, and they will learn to leave it, or any other outcome that is impossible to imagine.

We need to forget about the ilussion of having an ET friend to talk to.

Evolutions takes billions of years, but the technologic age only 500 to 1000 years. And even between the same tech period, our technology, algorithms and methods would be super different.

[jfull]

Didn't hawking claim ETs would be bad for us? Just who's side is he on?

He thinks that it would be bad for them to know about us, but it would be in our best interest to know about them.

It's... sort of a double standard, in a thousand years or so we could be dangerous to less advanced aliens. But you can't blame anybody for looking out for humanity first.

[SciMan]

If you believe you can find alien radio waves, send accidentally by alien advanced race, you should join UFO fans, because those aliens would locate Earth as habitable planet hundreds of years ago and would send probes or come to study it personally.

Ever heard of the "I Love Lucy" signal? We never sent that intentionally, and any other intelligent civilization that could detect that would almost certainly figure out that it's not something you can do without something intelligent creating it.

Fact is, as soon as we had radio communication, we've been sending interstellar radio beacon signals. Even if they can't understand the specific information in the signals, they're clearly not something you can replicate with "natural" phenomena like lightning or moon/planet/stellar magnetic fields.

Additionally, I believe that when we do find such a signal, there will be a lot more people interested in finding out what sent it.

In other words, it's not hard to imagine such a signal triggering another space race, or at least some kind of exploration mission.

Edited July 20, 2015 by SciMan

[Albert VDS]

The universe is full of live... but find an intelligence life form (close to our same technology) in our close neighborhood which can receive our radio signals and they care to answer, is very unlikely.

You are completely wrong on what SETI is, it's goal is not to call with ET and see how the weather is, it's goal is to find ET's radio waves which are seeping into space just like we are doing now.

Edit: If anyone thinks that SETI is a waste of money then they should compared it to some of the things on this infographic:

(It's from 2010, but still relevant as a comparison)

Edited July 20, 2015 by Albert VDS

[NFUN]

You are completely wrong on what SETI is, it's goal is not to call with ET and see how the weather is, it's goal is to find ET's radio waves which are seeping into space just like we are doing now.

Edit: If anyone thinks that SETI is a waste of money then they should compared it to some of the things on this infographic:

(It's from 2010, but still relevant as a comparison)

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5228/5676633160_c6530af7c8_o.jpg

Expect every post after this to be along the lines of "Yeah, we should get rid of [program I dislike] because [reasons], but there is no way we can eliminate [program I like] because [other reasons]." You are dangerously close to bringing politics into the forums, and that never ends well.

[WinkAllKerb'']

xDr ; )

[AngelLestat]

You are completely wrong on what SETI is, it's goal is not to call with ET and see how the weather is, it's goal is to find ET's radio waves which are seeping into space just like we are doing now.

Why you want so much antennas if you are not able to read beyond the second paragraph??

People wants to understand a ET signal and we can not understand a single english post.

[Albert VDS]

Why you want so much antennas if you are not able to read beyond the second paragraph??

People wants to understand a ET signal and we can not understand a single english post.

We don't need to understand it, the main goal is to receive such a signal so we know that we are not alone.

More unlikely is try to intercept signals from a higher tech civilization, because for sure they comunicate in a very different way, we can not be sure what we will use as comunication in only 100 years.

It doesn't matter what level the civilization is at, as long as we find a signal. Of course it can only be radio waves as that's the only thing we could detect in the search.

Also each time I am more convinced that once we reach the singularity, every will change in matter of few years or maybe days.

After that, an IA or "us" will find almost all about the universe, and they will learn to leave it, or any other outcome that is impossible to imagine.

Or we might never know everything about the universe.

We need to forget about the ilussion of having an ET friend to talk to.

And no one is saying that we are going to talk to ET.

Evolutions takes billions of years, but the technologic age only 500 to 1000 years. And even between the same tech period, our technology, algorithms and methods would be super different.

That's true, but it doesn't mean we can't look.

For example:

We wont explore exo-planets we find with Keppler, at least not in the foreseeable future, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't look for exo-planets.

[Godot]

One should also not forget that the results and technologies (and encountered problems) by SETI might also be of profit for other field within radio astronomy

[Darnok]

Obviously you've never seen an Unindentified Flying Obiect.

Sadly no, but if I would it would be "strong evidence" for me.

If you compare where we have looked and how big the universe actually is then we can come to the conclusion that we haven't started to search yet. In 2016 SETI is going to search per day what they did in one year.

If you compare how large part of Universe we observed using telescopes and any other equipment and think how many other civilizations should be out there and how many radio waves they should accidentally generate... you should come to a conclusion that we should hear alien radio signals just by turning on radio or TV or by opening smart fridge!

And no argument how large is universe is not good enough, because if you say universe is soooo large that only means there is place for far more alien civilizations

Argument I can agree with are "we are first" intelligent "aliens" in universe would be ok.

Argument "we are last and other civilizations are dead" would be invalid because radio waves of dead civilization still can be heard (referring to equation of civilization time frame some scientist created), but we haven't heard anything for 50+ years in universe at least 13.400.000.000 years old, surrounded by billions of stars and millions of galaxies!

Of course the outcome could be that the found signal is from a dead civilization, but it could as easily be alive or evolved into a whole different species.

But even if they are extinct it would still give the answer to the most important question of all: "Are we alone?".

Research is ok, but really 50+ years and nothing? Maybe we should take some conclusions from that "discovery", because failure of SETI is in fact discovery... advanced aliens are not using radio waves.

Or another one we are only one who are using radio waves in dumb ways. Because aliens discovered more advanced ways of communication, so hostile races (like we) wouldn't found them.

Your second sentence doesn't make any sense... could you try to rephrase it?

I was talking about hypothesis that before us on Earth there was other civilization, IF those are true we should put some more funds and search for evidence, and those studies didn't even get 1/10 funds of SETI over last 100 years!

In your last sentence you are assuming that Earth is a honey pot for any Aliens, that it's one of the best candidate for aliens to settle on, that they invented a significant form of space travel and that they can thrive on our planet.

I am assuming that peace loving aliens would like to send message to all newly evolved intelligent forms of life... and that message would contain that they are out there and that they may help us if we only ask them.

Of course if there are hostile aliens then they would also visit us to study if and when we will be potential threat to them.

Or we are so lucky nobody has discovered us by now, but how that can be possible if we discovered so many stars similar to our Sun?

Ever heard of the "I Love Lucy" signal? We never sent that intentionally, and any other intelligent civilization that could detect that would almost certainly figure out that it's not something you can do without something intelligent creating it.

Fact is, as soon as we had radio communication, we've been sending interstellar radio beacon signals. Even if they can't understand the specific information in the signals, they're clearly not something you can replicate with "natural" phenomena like lightning or moon/planet/stellar magnetic fields.

Additionally, I believe that when we do find such a signal, there will be a lot more people interested in finding out what sent it.

In other words, it's not hard to imagine such a signal triggering another space race, or at least some kind of exploration mission.

You didn't understand my post, please reread it, I was talking about "signals accidentally send by aliens", if there were any in our time frame we would discovered them years ago. The only hope for SETI is hypothesis that other civilizations started to use radio waves in way we do millions of years ago. Otherwise that means if we assume that life is evolving at same rate on entire universe... all civilizations are at same level of development... SETI is waste of time and money, because they will get first signals in year 1502015+

But SETI is also getting signals of Earth satellites right now in real time, so they have very good understanding what is flying above our heads

Edited July 21, 2015 by Darnok

[magnemoe]

Ever heard of the "I Love Lucy" signal? We never sent that intentionally, and any other intelligent civilization that could detect that would almost certainly figure out that it's not something you can do without something intelligent creating it.

Fact is, as soon as we had radio communication, we've been sending interstellar radio beacon signals. Even if they can't understand the specific information in the signals, they're clearly not something you can replicate with "natural" phenomena like lightning or moon/planet/stellar magnetic fields.

Additionally, I believe that when we do find such a signal, there will be a lot more people interested in finding out what sent it.

In other words, it's not hard to imagine such a signal triggering another space race, or at least some kind of exploration mission.

However we would not be able to pick it up at Alpha Centauri. TV signals are not directed so they are victim of the inverse square law.

Strong directed signals like search radars can be picked up but they does not last long and don't carry much information. Perhaps the WOW signal was an search radar.

We was lucky it was directed against us.

Note that we are moving away from large transmitters over to low power cell networks. In deep space laser is probably better to transmit data this leaves radar and probably emergency systems.