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

[rtxoff]

Sometimes i really have to wonder here. First of all there is no such thing as "signals accidentally send by aliens". The only hope someone might pick up a your radio wave somewhere very distant is if you send them directed into its direction. All other radio waves we are constantly emitting are not directed to a specific direction. The difference is enormous. Imagine a 100W light bulb which is emitting its light in all directions. it might be able to illuminate its immediate surrounding and you might be able to see it from a few km in the dark but that's it. Now imagine a 100W laser. You should be able to make someone blind in a few km if you can aim it directly to his eyes. So will anybody pick up our radio waves we are producing already for a century? The answer IMO is definitely no. Might someone be able to pick up a directed transmission from us half across the galaxy? The answer is yes however we might be extinct until the signal arrives. Every other intelligent civilization out there which is capable of sending radio waves will know this also which brings us to the point of this all being pretty hopeless. Because we have no idea which of the stars in the sky might be inhabited with Intelligent life and we don't know where to point our radar dishes to. The same thing also applies to ET. Even if they wanted to send us a signal they wouldn't know in which direction to send to. If you want to send it in all directions you would approximately need the power level of a sun. Which leaves us with the question why should they use this amount of resources to do it? SETI was never very well funded for a reason. The reason is it simply doesn't make any sense if you like it or not.

Edit: got ninjaed a bit by Magnamoe

[Stargate525]

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!

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.

That's really not surprising whatsoever. It just means that there's no alien societies who have, within the last fifty years, done all of the following:

-Broadcast a radio signal

-With sufficient power to reach earth

-With enough clear space from interference from stellar phenomena

-To hit a receiver

-Which was listening at that specific frequency

-And was actually identified as a non-terrestrial signal

The universe is actually fairly noisy in the radio bands. Picking out an alien's bleeding signals (like our old TV and radio programmes) rapidly becomes a case of sifting through noise akin to reading the waves of a man slapping the water from the other side of the ocean.

And if we're talking about a general broadcast from another GALAXY... Well, the only energy event we've seen from other galaxies is gamma ray bursts, and those would annihilate life within several dozen lightyears of the event. It would be like using nukes for smokesignals. If it's a narrowband, like laser, the odds of it hitting our little planet is astronomical.

...If you want to send it in all directions you would approximately need the power level of a sun.

I don't remember the book, but there was a sci-fi novel I read once with a civilization which sent communications by placing occluding satellites at specific periods around their sun. Sort of a massive interstellar heliographic billboard.

Edited July 21, 2015 by Stargate525

[Darnok]

That's really not surprising whatsoever. It just means that there's no alien societies who have, within the last fifty years, done all of the following:

Wrong, that means there are no NEW alien civilizations who have done that in last... millions of years - 50 years

Why would older civilizations, that were using waves as communication source, stop generating radio waves, their waves should still flow near or even pass the Earth?

[Godot]

Wrong, that means there are no NEW alien civilizations who have done that in last... millions of years - 50 years

Why would older civilizations, that were using waves as communication source, stop generating radio waves...

That´s what term L in the Drake equation is for.

It is the expected lifetime of a civilization (or more exactly, the time it is able to release detectable radio waves).

Usually L is seen as the main limiting factor in the Drake equation (and the lifetime of such an advanced civilization measured in 100k years at most (often even shorter), not in millions (before civilization collapses, be it due to wars, resource scarcity or planetary disasters)

[YNM]

I don't care what's the intention, what I care is that it'll monitor the whole sky in any way it is. You know, maybe some nova can go blast away near the observed object (as seen from Earth)... And that's a boon in any way. Not to mention if they also getting some astrometric/spectroscopic observations with it, would be a good way to search new multiple stars, or maybe exoplanets. Nobody knows, why would you condemn a good opportunity to just "listen" to the nature ?

Edited July 21, 2015 by YNM

[magnemoe]

That´s what term L in the Drake equation is for.

It is the expected lifetime of a civilization (or more exactly, the time it is able to release detectable radio waves).

Usually L is seen as the main limiting factor in the Drake equation (and the lifetime of such an advanced civilization measured in 100k years at most (often even shorter), not in millions (before civilization collapses, be it due to wars, resource scarcity or planetary disasters)

The problem with L is how long an civilization release detectable radio waves strong enough to be noticed around in the galaxy. This time is likely to be 0 or close to it.

We are moving away from large unidirectional broadcasts, directional signals travel longer but are not aimed at a star so even if transmitting constantly you have an very low chance to pick it up and the signal will probably not repeat many times, this depend on the spread of the beam.

Now if an civilization moves totally away from high power radio you will not notice them.

Think the Drake equation assumed radio emissions would continue to increase exponential as it did in the 60s. Rather the opposite is true.

Looking for planets with an oxygen atmosphere sounds simpler and also have an much higher chance of success.

[AngelLestat]

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

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.

It does not matter? Walking over land you cross millions of different type of stones, you never know if some of those stones are in fact a piece of pelvis from a particular kind of reptile who nobody found until now.

If you read about reasearch on possible techniques for interstellar distances comunications (in case one day we will be able to sent a probe to alpha centauri), you will notice that they need to use very complex algorithms in many frequencies at the same time (to track and correct errors in transmisions). So anyone who has not the right algorithm and frequencies to track that transmission, it may look just as background noice.

And that will be just for the radiowaves case.. they can use laser, gamma rays, neutrinos, atom size wormholes or who knows..

We dont know the directions of the incomming transmission or frequencies, also the inverse square law as magnemoe and gpisic mention.

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.

We may discover once a while things by error or chance. But it does not mean that someone will receive funds to mix chemical solutions at random to see if something happens.

And if the people behind SETI does not understand these simple facts, in which there is a huge chance that they are wasting their whole life to see if they can win the lottery with one ticket, then this is another clue that people behind seti are not the best for the job either.

The only possibility that I can think to contact another intelligence, it will be if this intelligence leaves transmitters beacons every 10 to 30 light years to detect any new intelligence civilization rising, so they can answer and teach that civilization how to survive the tech age. (contact movie-book plot)

But if that is the case.. why they dont make von neumann probes and leave them in each planet waiting to be activated under certain circustances?

Or we might never know everything about the universe.

that is true for "we".

Our tech grows as one grain to the time over the sand pile, our intelligence factor is constant (our brains dint become more powerfull in the last 50000 years), the only thing that is not constant and makes our tech grow in some kind of exponential rate, is the fact that our populations and access to education grow exponential, also the tools we use to help us in this matter.

Our brains are really limited to understand many complex things at the same time, that is why we may think in a particular long evolution tech trend.

But that is not the case..

Because once we understand the mechanism of conscience (which is only the way of how information is related and storage), then an AI would arise.

Even with the power of today super computers (which is estimated to be from 1% to 70% the power of our brain, it will be able to analize and discover things at a rate hard to imagine for us.

The most part of our brain is used to control our whole body and senses, that is not an easy task, that is why there is a strong relation between body size and brain size.

Why we can dream with such power of details, even if our senses or control from the body are not all shutdown, but when we are awake is really hard to imagine something with few details, the answer is because the brain is more focus in that task when is dreaming, the same for autistic people, they can do math or other actions as a computer.

An AI does not have those focus limits, it can also increase its "brain power" at the same rate of their discoveries. It will be so fast, that it would not require even experimentation to confirm something, due it incredible power to make simulations.

One day humans might think is possible to colonize other planets and the next day or year an AI will understand that is pointless because there are much better options, and later it may discover that even those options are pointless. So maybe it decide to leave the universe. Or who knows. That is why is called the singularity.

So at that rate of progress, is impossible to say hello to someone else.

Edited July 21, 2015 by AngelLestat

[Stargate525]

Wrong, that means there are no NEW alien civilizations who have done that in last... millions of years - 50 years

Why would older civilizations, that were using waves as communication source, stop generating radio waves, their waves should still flow near or even pass the Earth?

Mainly? Because it's bloody inefficient. General radio broadcasts of the type that bleed into space are basically shouting loud enough to be heard by your receiver. If they die off, they obviously aren't going to keep broadcasting either.

Which makes their contact transmissions an expanding shell, with a thickness of however long they've broadcast, expanding at the speed of light. If you're 'inside' the shell, you won't hear them either. It doesn't help us at all if the advanced aliens of Alpha Centauri were spamming radio across the galaxy; if they stopped more than five or six years ago, their transmissions have already passed us, and we have no way of knowing whether they did or no.

[WinkAllKerb'']

yup i especially like this one ; ) our body is nothing more than a big factory with lot of tiny specialized worker in we hardly can communicate directly with, but a way or another smaller and bigger all comunicate each other.

[Layereddiagram]

This whole thing seems analogous to buying a lottery ticket. Spend a small chunk of a budget in the off chance that we hit the jackpot. Except in this case the prize has immeasurable value. I'd say it's worth it.

[Beowolf]

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

Hawking argued against "active SETI", where we send super-powerful radio waves out into the universe to see if anyone answers. "SETI" without "active" always refers to passively listening with radio telescopes.

But, contrary to pop-scifi movies, commercial radio and TV broadcasts are quickly torn up by interference from interstellar gas and gravity waves, and can't be detected beyond around 30 light years. Beyond that tiny sphere, no aliens are watching our I Love Lucy reruns, and SETI couldn't pick up their TV shows even if they had a reason to be watching that particular star.

SETI watches for aliens running their own "active SETI" programs. Active SETI uses narrow, highly-directional beams that must be aimed at a particular star. Why would someone 1000 light years away have beamed a signal at our star 1000 years ago? I have no answer, which sums up why I'm not a SETI fan.

But wouldn't it be awesome if they beat the odds and found a definitely artificial signal out there?

[Godot]

Maybe the Wow-Signal was such an artificial signal ... unfortunately we will probably never know, as it hasn´t returned despite periodical checks of the region

[NFUN]

Maybe the Wow-Signal was such an artificial signal ... unfortunately we will probably never know, as it hasn´t returned despite periodical checks of the region

We can just wait until the response signal we sent back gets received and they (assuming anything is out there) reply. I've got 35,000 years to kill.

[Kilmeister]

I think we really should look for signals from alien planets. But I think the odds of finding even another civilization that it actively searching for us is still incredibly implausible. Not (really) because of distance, but because of time. Not only do we have to be looking in the right place at the right time, but we also have to coincide with when another planet is at that same level of technology. We've only been sending signals into space for only a tiny fraction of the time the earth has been around, and we're already moving on to technologies that don't put out powerful radio signals. So matching that window is highly improbable. Also, who knows if an alien race ever invented radio.... maybe they just moved beyond radio and discovered quantum entanglement as a communication method. Or they figured out something that we have yet to even conceive as a communication medium.

I believe that there are definitely other beings out there actively searching. But the chance of even contacting another one at even futuristic levels of our technology are slim to none. Technology has come a long way very rapidly for us. In just a few thousand years we're already searching for life elsewhere in our universe. But right now with the limitation of light speed we are crippled in this endevour. If another massive breakthrough occurs and we discover a way to break this limitation then we may actually have a reasonable chance at discovering alien life from other stars.

Searching is the thing to do, but I have much less faith in this succeeding than I have in my current lotto ticket winning.... (I'm still playing though)

MS Paint Chart I made up.

[WinkAllKerb'']

you zoomed right ?

[KerikBalm]

The galxy is 100,000 light years across.

Anything outside the galaxy is for all intents and purposes unreachable and impossible to communicate with.

No laser has zero beam divergence... signal strength will be imperceptible small at those distances.

To see signals from other galaxies, power levels on the order of supernovae are needed.

If such civilizations exist that would bother seinding signals by *causing* supernovae, presumably many to have a pattern distinguishable as non-random... well, you don't need SETI for that astronomers already look for supernovae.

So its only really worth considering in our galaxy.

Our radio transmissions aren't even distinguishable at the next nearest star.

The one must consider the time a civilization may take before sending radio waves, and either collapse or harnessing fusion power.

Fusion powered spacecraft could travel in excess of 1% of the speed of light... a million years to colonize the galaxy...

We know that a planet in this galaxy has been capable of supporting life for ~4,000 million years. There's no reason to think that other's couldn't have existed at least somewhat earlier.

As for Earth, the novel structures that were needed for us....

5 digit hand on a terrestrial animal: ~300 million years ago

An advanced brain structure (ie the mammalian neocortex) ~225 million years ago...

225 million years of all the ingredients being there, before we evolved... maybe the evolution is quite rare?

If the galaxy is teeming with planets with as much life as earth, some should have evolved intelligence much earlier, and have spread all over the galaxy by now.

They haven't.

Either they aren't there, or we are the first or among the first, or there are actually very few (the fewer there are, the more plausble the argument that they simply decided not to expand... if there are millions of them... *some* of them would have expanded and taken over the galaxy)

It seems so unlikely that we are the first?

Not really. I often hear people say how its so unlikely that Earth has all these conditions that are right for life... position in the galaxy, relative to the star, size, composition, etc.

What are the odds that our planet would be so well suited?

100%

We wouldn't be here to ask the question if they weren't. No Venusians are asking the question. Its like the question "What are the odds that a lotto winner has won the lotto?"

Given the timescales involved.... we simply shouldn't be here if the galaxy is teeming with life and we're not among the first.

[RainDreamer]

I kind of prefer they provide fund for development of Mar's space program. They can call it the search for martians if need be.

[rtxoff]

*snip* Given the timescales involved.... we simply shouldn't be here if the galaxy is teeming with life and we're not among the first.

I agree with much of that just not with the last sentence. People tend to think that ET is some kind of miracle tech user and i think no it's not. The same physical laws that are limiting us will also limit ET. Also the same socio-economical problems we are suffering from will also let ET suffer. Same conditions will most likely develop into the same form of life and their history will be very similar to our. (evolution, wars, exploitation, extinction)

So no, if there is ET out there it will be stuck on its own planet the same way we are stuck on earth. I once said in this forum that traveling to other stars is the greatest test live has given upon us and i still hold onto that. Basically it's expand and conquer into the universe or get extinct because getting extinction is the only fate that we have by staying on Earth. It's just about overcoming our differences and work towards a common goal for a better future but this seems to be an impossible task to do. For many people overcoming the inner primate seems to be just impossible. The moment we will stand on the verge of extinction we all will realize this but then it will be too late.

[magnemoe]

I think we really should look for signals from alien planets. But I think the odds of finding even another civilization that it actively searching for us is still incredibly implausible. Not (really) because of distance, but because of time. Not only do we have to be looking in the right place at the right time, but we also have to coincide with when another planet is at that same level of technology. We've only been sending signals into space for only a tiny fraction of the time the earth has been around, and we're already moving on to technologies that don't put out powerful radio signals. So matching that window is highly improbable. Also, who knows if an alien race ever invented radio.... maybe they just moved beyond radio and discovered quantum entanglement as a communication method. Or they figured out something that we have yet to even conceive as a communication medium.

I believe that there are definitely other beings out there actively searching. But the chance of even contacting another one at even futuristic levels of our technology are slim to none. Technology has come a long way very rapidly for us. In just a few thousand years we're already searching for life elsewhere in our universe. But right now with the limitation of light speed we are crippled in this endevour. If another massive breakthrough occurs and we discover a way to break this limitation then we may actually have a reasonable chance at discovering alien life from other stars.

Searching is the thing to do, but I have much less faith in this succeeding than I have in my current lotto ticket winning.... (I'm still playing though)

MS Paint Chart I made up.

http://i.imgur.com/TSunMmt.png

Agree, now looking for planets with life makes more sense.

Also because it show where to look for radio signals instead of searching blind.

[Albert VDS]

It does not matter? Walking over land you cross... be activated under certain circustances?

As far as I know this is how it would go:

1: Search for signal made by a life form from another solar system, either an intentional signal*(easier to detect) or a leaked into space signal(harder to detect). If we can verify it then we know that we are not alone.

2: Now such a signal has been found it can be examined/decoded, an intentional signal* would easier to decode than one leaked into space.

Like we have sent the "Arecibo message", "Cosmic Call" and "A Message from Earth", though not ongoing signals.

Radio waves are our best shot at finding a signal because that's what we know is the best way to communicate at those distances.

Maybe it's the only way, maybe there are better ways but it's the only option at the moment.

All the other options you mentioned are not important to look for simply because they aren't directed at us, we don't know how it would work, are pure fiction or are deadly to the recipients.

that is true for "we".

Our tech grows as one grain... say hello to someone else.

That might be a possibility, but that doesn't mean it will go that way for us or any other alien civilizations.

There are a whole lot of other paths to be taken, some more likely than others.

The only way to know something for sure is to not look, because then we know we wont find anything.

[Godot]

I agree with much of that just not with the last sentence. People tend to think that ET is some kind of miracle tech user and i think no it's not. The same physical laws that are limiting us will also limit ET. Also the same socio-economical problems we are suffering from will also let ET suffer. Same conditions will most likely develop into the same form of life and their history will be very similar to our. (evolution, wars, exploitation, extinction)

So no, if there is ET out there it will be stuck on its own planet the same way we are stuck on earth. I once said in this forum that traveling to other stars is the greatest test live has given upon us and i still hold onto that. Basically it's expand and conquer into the universe or get extinct because getting extinction is the only fate that we have by staying on Earth. It's just about overcoming our differences and work towards a common goal for a better future but this seems to be an impossible task to do. For many people overcoming the inner primate seems to be just impossible. The moment we will stand on the verge of extinction we all will realize this but then it will be too late.

I agree ... there could be an abundance of pre industrial alien civilizations without us noticing them (due to them not using radio communications)

[KerikBalm]

Ah yes, I was not precise enough.

Normally when I make a post like that, I specify advanced alien civilizations capable of interstellar travel, and then say humans have *a chance* to be among the first.

Once we have a cheap-ish way to orbit, the mining and manufacturing may follow.

+

Once we have a good fusion reactor design

We should be able to become an interstellar species.

Or we may destroy our habitat first.

Fusion powered spacecraft would not be a miracle tech, and it is in our foreseable future. (maybe even fission powered spacecraft.. how common is thorium or uranium in asteroids?)

If it takes use another 1,000 years, that is the blink of an eye for the timescales involved.

It does seem we are at a critical point in our history... the population bomb is getting ready to blow, we've delayed it a really long time... but 10 billion has got to be some sort of threshold.

With it comes competition for resources that can lead to devestating nuclear war, and severe ecological damage even if there is no war.

Depending on how we handle the coming crisis, we either inherit the galaxy, or fade into obscurity as yet another planet that failed to produce any life that could escape before the planet's habitability ended.

[_Augustus_]

Good thing Kepler just found an Earth twin, they're announcing more tomorrow.