Universe Today » SETI

So Where Is ET, Anyway?

Brian Ventrudo — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:01:26 +0000

While having lunch with colleagues at Los Alamos National Labs in 1950, physicist Enrico Fermi mused about the likelihood of intelligent life existing elsewhere in the Universe. Fermi, one of the most astute scientists of his day, thought the size and age of the Universe means many advanced civilizations should have already colonized the galaxy, just as humans colonized and explored the Earth. But if such galaxy-wide extraterrestrial civilizations exist, he wondered, where are they?

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A New Drake Equation? Other Life Not Likely to be Intelligent

Nancy Atkinson — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:13:54 +0000

Looking for signals from distant civilizations might be an effort in futility, according to scientists who met at Harvard University recently. The dominant view of astronomers at a symposium on the future of human life in the Universe seems to be that if other life is out there, it likely is dominated by microbes or other nonspeaking creatures.
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Should We Really Tell ET Our Problems?

Ian O'Neill — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:18:20 +0000

The design etched to the Pioneer probes. The first interstellar pornography? (NASA)

So, you have a radio transmitter and you've been tasked to send a message into space to try to communicate with a hypothetical alien civilization. Where do you begin? Probably high on your list is to seek out the best candidate stars to send a signal to. As we only have experience of life on Earth, it's a pretty good idea to look for Sun-like stars, as for all you know, that is the only place where Life As We Know It™ could exist.

So now you have found the potential location of an alien civilization, what message should you send? Firstly you'd probably want to make a good impression; perhaps sending directions to Earth, a universal map with an arrow pointing at the Solar System. Secondly you might want to identify what/who you are (insert some human physiology here). And third? Perhaps you'd consider sending information about our culture, civilization, history, science; all the good stuff that makes us human.

Would it cross your mind to mention there are 23 bloody conflicts going on right now amongst our own kind? Would you think about telling our potential alien neighbours about what you just had for dinner? Would it be a good idea to tell them about the political corruption in your country, the vast poverty worldwide or the ecological damage we are doing to our own home?

In a recent article written by the director of interstellar message composition at the SETI Institute, the question about communicating honestly with ET, without sanitizing the truth, is asked. Should we really tell an alien civilization about our problems?
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Looking For Extraterrestrials Looking At Us

Ian O'Neill — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:13:35 +0000

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If there are habitable planets out there, where do we look?

The cosmos is a very big place, how do you begin the search for exoplanets orbiting other stars? Astronomers have a few tricks up their sleeves to work out how to spot these tiny specks of distant alien worlds. Astronomers can look for the gravitational "wobble" of a star as a massive exoplanet tugs on its parent star during orbit, or more commonly, they look for the slight dimming of star light as the exoplanet passes in front of the star. In fact, the Kepler space telescope is going to peer into space, surveying 100,000 stars to do just this; not looking for large gas giants, but detecting rocky bodies that resemble large Earths with the unparalleled precision.

OK, so we have a means of finding these habitable worlds, how can we use this information to widen our search for extraterrestrial intelligence? Researchers in Israel have asked that same question, and arrived at a very logical answer. If we are to communicate with these advanced beings, perhaps we should make sure they can see us first…
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The Milky Way Could have Billions of Earths

Nicholos Wethington — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:18:42 +0000

With the upcoming launch in March of the Kepler mission to find extrasolar planets, there is quite a lot of buzz about the possibility of finding habitable planets outside of our Solar System. Kepler will be the first satellite telescope with the capability to find Earth-size and smaller planets. At the most recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago, Dr. Alan Boss is quoted by numerous media outlets as saying that there could be billions of Earth-like planets in the Milky Way alone, and that we may find an Earth-like planet orbiting a large proportion of the stars in the Universe.(...)
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Less Than 20 Years Until First Contact?

Nancy Atkinson — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:01:25 +0000

The Allen Telescope Array (ATA) has come online with its initial configuration of 42 antennas. The project, led by the SETI Institute, is a non-governmental project funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in which eventually 350 small radio antennas will scan the sky for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. To test the system, the ATA sucessfully picked up the New Horizons probe on its way to Pluto. Senior SETI scientist Seth Shostak said at an event in San Francisco Tuesday night that the array could become strong enough by 2025 to look deep enough into space to find extraterrestrial signals. "We'll find E.T. within two dozen years," he said.
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Podcast: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Astronomy Cast — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:19:23 +0000

Artist's impression of the Allen Array. Image credit: SETI Institute

You know what this show needs? More aliens. Since we don't seem to have any visiting right now, we're going to have to find some. SETI is an acronym. It stands for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. But there's more to SETI than just putting up a radio telescope and hoping to catch a glimpse of an alien television broadcast.

Click here to download the episode.

Or subscribe to: astronomycast.com/podcast.xml with your podcatching software.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence – Transcript and show notes.

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Messages From Earth Beamed to Alien World

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:55:45 +0000

The powerful opening scene of the movie "Contact" portrays radio and television signals from Earth heading out into space. Then later in the film, shockingly, one of those signals — a televised speech by Adolf Hitler — is beamed back as a reply. Could that really happen? Could an alien civilization "find" us from our inherent noise? Or, if we want other intelligent life to know we're here, will we have to take a more proactive or aggressive approach? Perhaps we'll find out. Today, messages from Earth were beamed specifically at an alien world considered capable of supporting life, the planet Gliese 581c, a "super-Earth" located approximately 20 light years from us. The social networking site Bebo sponsored a competition for young people to share their views and concerns of life on Earth, and the winners' messages were transmitted this morning from a radio telescope in Ukraine. Bebo was assisted by Dr. Alexander Zaitsev, who says the only way alien civilizations might find us is if we specifically make ourselves known.
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New Search for Extraterrestrials Waits for No One, Er…, Everyone

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:18:24 +0000

In a bold move, astronomers have begun a new search to understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of intelligent life in the universe. Called WETI, which stands for Wait for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, the institute employs an entirely novel approach to achieve its goals. Instead of actively searching for extraterrestrial intelligence, the idea is to simply wait: Wait until the ETs find us. "Waiting is a notoriously underappreciated method in our efforts to search for extraterrestrial intelligence," says the WETI website. "It is cheaper and less stressful than any other type of research. It is also environmentally friendly and does not cause global warming, terrorism or nuclear conflicts." WETI's overall objective? To set a new gold standard for scientifically meaningful waiting, and to provide humankind a new purpose as they wait.
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Communicating Via the Cepheid Galactic Internet

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:41:36 +0000

If an alien species wanted to communicate with Earthlings, or any other civilization that might be out there, how might they do it? Some have proposed microwaves, neutrinos or lasers, or even moving stars around into patterns. But why wouldn't aliens just use the internet? The Cepheid Galactic Internet, that is. A group of scientists has proposed that a sufficiently advanced civilization could use Cephied variable stars as beacons to transmit information throughout the galaxy and beyond. These stars can be seen from long distances and, the scientists say, any technologically advanced civilization would likely observe Cepheids as distance markers. The group of physicists and astronomers from Hawaii and California propose that Cepheids and any other regular variable stars should be searched for signs of phase modulation and patterns which could be indicative of intentional signaling.
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New Radio Telescope to Help SETI Scan Unexplored Frequencies for Extraterrestrials

Nancy Atkinson — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:29:36 +0000

Since the 1960's astronomers have been scanning the heavens, searching for radio signals beamed towards the vicinity of Earth by other intelligent beings. But so far, no ET signals have been found. However, no radio telescope has been able to search the very low frequency radio spectrum, which could possibly include "leakage" of extraterrestrial "everyday" signals that a distant civilization might emit, such as television and radio signals. But a new radio telescope called LOFAR (the Low Frequency Array), will have that ability. Currently being built by ASTRON, (the Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy), LOFAR consists of about 25,000 small antennas that will receive signals from space, and offers the ability to search these low-frequency type of radio waves.
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Doritos In Space

Nancy Atkinson — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:49:48 +0000

I'm all for the commercial use of space, but this might be a bit overboard. Back in March of this year, Ian reported on a fund raising scheme to help the United Kingdom's physics and astronomy money woes. The scheme involved soliciting commercial companies to pay for advertising being beamed into space, supposedly directed towards potential extra terrestrial life. The manufacturer of Doritos snack chips stepped up, donating an undisclosed sum in exchange for transmitting their ad. But the Doritos people decided to turn the advertisement into a contest, and created the Doritos Broadcast Project, which invited the UK public to create a 30 second video clip that could be beamed out to the universe offering a snap shot of life on earth to anyone 'out there'. According to a poll, 61% of the UK public believe this is just the start of communication with ET life and that we will enter into regular communication with an alien species at some stage in the future. See the winning commercial:
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If ET Calls, Would We Be Told?

Nancy Atkinson — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 22:35:50 +0000

If a verified message from aliens is ever received, would the public be told about it? SETI â€“ the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence – does have an international protocol that if an alien signal is ever received, it would be disseminated among the astronomical community and made public. And of course, says Mac Tonnies at the SETI Blog, â€œinternational cooperation might be necessary in order to distinguish a legitimate alien signal from any number of phenomena capable of generating false alarms.â€ But what if the signal is more than just extra-terrestrials saying hello? Tonnies believes SETI's plans for full disclosure only makes sense if the message is fairly benign. If the signal was a notice of impending doom from a black hole, supernova, or alien invasion â€“ something we on Earth had little power to do anything about â€“ Tonnies questions whether governments would choose to make such information public. But could something of this magnitude really be kept under wraps?
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Is Our Universe Ruled by Artificial Intelligence?

Fraser Cain — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:59:39 +0000

Science fiction is filled with unusual alien species. But apart from the occasional robot, biological life is running the show. But NASA scientist, Dr. Steven Dick, sees a future Universe that has evolved past biology. Where every intelligence is artificial. Consider the likelihood of a postbiological Universe.
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Making the Best First Impression, with Aliens

Fraser Cain — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 18:26:08 +0000

Did you know the SETI Institute has a Director of Interstellar Message Composition? I did not know that. I guess it makes sense. If we're going to be communicating with aliens, we'll want to be careful about the words we choose. Get it right, and we've got extraterrestrial friends, here to uplift us to the galactic community. Get it wrong and we might be looking at radio silence, or worse…

So how should we present ourselves to prospective galactic neighbours?
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The Ultimate Fund-Raising Scheme: Transmit Adverts To Aliens

Ian O'Neill — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 05:04:23 +0000

OK, so there have been some strange things going on between us Earthlings and aliens lately. The deep-space Pioneer and Voyager probes carried images and artefacts of our culture into the cosmos decades ago. This plan has now been upstaged by the Deep Space Network transmitting a Beatles tune in the direction of the star Polaris. Both are different methods in an attempt to achieve the same thing – to contact alien civilizations. Extraterrestrials might even be trying to communicate with us by playing around with stars or blasting neutrinos at us…

But, in the next episode of this epic saga, as the human race feels more and more alone in a seemingly lifeless, but expanding universe… [break - this programme will be continued after a message from our sponsors]
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Aliens Might Be Moving Stars to Communicate With Us

Fraser Cain — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 22:51:25 +0000

You've got to love the audacity of this idea. In a recent article at Discover Magazine, virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier (you know, the guy with the dreadlocks) proposes that we get working on repositioning nearby stars to form geometric patterns – or at least start looking for places that it's already been done by aliens.
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Are we sending a bit too much information into the cosmos?

Ian O'Neill — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:26:46 +0000

On Monday (February 4, 7 pm EST) NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) sent a transmission toward the North Star, Polaris. The transmission sent was the song "Across the Universe" by the Beatles intended for any sufficiently advanced extra terrestrial life to listen to. Although this is a nice gesture and may nurture Beatles fans beyond our solar system, some scientists have expressed concerns for advertising our planet's location to the universe, just in case the aliens listening in aren't that friendly after all…
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SETI@home Needs You!

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:09:39 +0000

If your New Yearâ€™s resolutions include trying something new, expanding your horizons, or doing something to benefit humanity, this is for you: SETI@home needs more volunteers to help crunch data in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). And the easy part is that your desktop computer does all the work.
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The Best Alien Hunter is Open for Business

Fraser Cain — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 02:17:55 +0000

The biggest and best tool ever developed to search for signs of extraterrestrial life is coming online in Northern California. No, it's not an interstellar bounty hunter, it's an array of radio dishes in Northern California. The Allen Array, located in an arid valley near the town of Hat Creek started gathering data with 42 radio dishes today. But that's just the beginning; eventually there'll be 350 dishes pointed to the heavens, listening for the faint communications from an extraterrestrial intelligence.
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Podcast: Counting Aliens with the Drake Equation

Fraser Cain — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 01:51:45 +0000

If you're wondering how many extraterrestrials there are in our galaxy, you just have to use a simple equation developed by astronomer Frank Drake in 1961. Just find out how many stars there are, how many support life, how many advanced societies form, and a few other details and we'll be set.
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Listening for ET

Fraser Cain — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 01:53:43 +0000

Are we alone in the Universe? We won't know until we really start looking for life around other stars… or listening for it.
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