Space and astronomy news
The first early humans to use fire had no inkling of what it would lead to. Fire was one of our first technologies, and humans have been making changes to their environments since the advent of controlled fire hundreds of thousands of years ago. Fast forward to current times, and our modern technological and global …
Continue reading “Could We Find Aliens Terraforming Other Worlds?”
All organisms communicate information with their cells using signaling molecules. Add up all these communications, and it’s the equivalent of 10^24 bits per second, which is an incomprehensibly large amount. Humanity’s digital communication only amounts to 10^15 bits per second, nine orders of magnitude less. However, humanity’s information transmission is growing exponentially, and according to a new study, it should catch up within 90 years. These estimates could help astronomers search for technological civilizations more advanced than us.
JWST is the most powerful instrument astronomers have to study the atmospheres of exoplanets, looking for trace gases that might indicate life on another world. What if Earth was an exoplanet orbiting a nearby star? What could JWST learn about our planet? In a new study, astronomers took observations of Earth from various spacecraft and then simulated what JWST would see if it got our home planet in the crosshairs. The telescope could detect various chemicals, from water vapor to methane, but it could also sense the presence of chlorofluorocarbons resulting from our industrial infrastructure.
This year’s Penn State SETI Symposium provided a good rundown of the field and the kinds of studies scientists will be able to do in the near future.
This year’s Penn State SETI Summit kicked off with a a lecture on how history will remember SETI pioneer Frank Drake, creator of the famous Drake Equation and leader of Project Ozma.
Astronomers have discovered thousands of planets using the transit technique, watching how distant stars dim as a planet passes in between us and the star. A small group of stars is lined up so alien astronomers can discover Earth using the same transit technique. In a new paper, researchers suggest that the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Telescope should scan this Earth’s transiting zone for habitable planets. If there are other advanced civilizations there, they should know we’re here and would be the ideal places to search for signs of intelligence.
A new study suggests that we could expand the scope of SETI research by looking for civilizations beyond our galaxy.
NASA just announced the members of the independent study team that will recommend how the study of UAP can help the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Science fiction is the realm where people traditionally wrestle with the idea of contact with an ETI (Extraterrestrial Intelligence.) But now, those discussions are migrating from science fiction into more serious realms. Academics are going back and forth, one paper at a time, concerning the response and geopolitical fallout from potential contact with an ETI. …
Continue reading “How Should the World’s Governments Respond if We Detect an Alien Civilization?”
If there are so many galaxies, stars, and planets, where are all the aliens, and why haven’t we heard from them? Those are the simple questions at the heart of the Fermi Paradox. In a new paper, a pair of researchers ask the next obvious question: how long will we have to survive to hear …