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Europe's New ET Life Search Programme

Posted by Hemos on from the testing-the-galaxy dept.

hotsauce writes "The Guardian has a report on Europe's ambitious new programme to search for extra terrestial life. ESA has started a program called Cosmic Visions which will launch a series of satelites, starting with Gaia in 2011, and possibly culminating with the Exo-Earth Imager, a mission consisting of 10.000 3-metre mirror telescopes. The French are leading the charge with Corot in 2008."

11 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. New processing algorithms by 2.7182 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've heard about new algorithms that are going into effect at the Aricibo telescope that use wavelets to get much better results. Apparently a lot of old data is going to be re analyzed.

    1. Re:New processing algorithms by Feminist-Mom · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's true - Coifman from the Yale math dept. that has a company that is doing this. But it hasn't hit the popular press yet. Among the mathematicians it is controversial whether it will work.

  2. 10.000 in European = 10,000 in the U.S. by benhocking · · Score: 5, Informative

    For those who didn't know.

    --
    Ben Hocking
    Need a professional organizer?
  3. Talk about accuracy... by over_exposed · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...a mission consisting of 10.000 3-metre mirror telescopes.

    This is an upgrade to previous versions of the plan that called for 8.735 3-metre mirror telescopes. Adding that 1.265 mirrors really helps I'm sure.

    --
    "The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
  4. Trying to contact ET by Average_Joe_Sixpack · · Score: 5, Interesting

    NPR did a story on the most efficient way to search for extra-terrestrial life, where it would be more efficient (energy/economic) to send craft out to distant solar systems rather than beam signals there. Apparantly the loss in signal strength is so severe (inverse square law) that signals get lost in the cosmic background.

  5. 10,000? by turboflux · · Score: 5, Funny

    10,000 satellites...

    *Collective shudder from Chinese villagers*

  6. The reason we've haven't found aliens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is because we've been searching using imperial-measure radio wavelengths. Once we switch to metric wavelengths and start decoding in French, we'll finally be able to understand them.

  7. Different from SETI by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is about looking for planets, then analysing them to see if they have the conditions to support life (oxygen, co2, methane). SETI is about trying to recieve radio signals created by intelligent beings out there.

    In short, this is looking for any sort of possible life, SETI is looking for "ET phone home".

    SETI is fundamentally flawed, since even now we on Earth are broadcasting less and less out into space. We're using microwave and lasers to talk to our satellites, and everything on the ground is getting wired, or fed from satellites.

    The days of gigawatt broadcasting over radio bands is winding to an end, so we only will have made "noise" for a century or so.

    One could assume an intelligent race would outgrow the technology just as we have, or never use it in the first place.

    SETI is like trying to find modern Native Americans by looking for smoke signals, when they communicate using the phone or internet these days.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
    1. Re:Different from SETI by thesandtiger · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While I don't necessarily disagree, I don't think that we're necessarily looking in the wrong place. Imagine a civilization far in advance of our own using some sort of communications technology we can't even imagine as yet. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult for them to make a massively powerful radio transmitter to call out? In fact, I can see one very good reason to think there might be such a beacon made by an advanced civilization. Think about all the trials and tribulations we're going through right now, all this uncertainty about whether or not humanity will survive - about whether it is even possible *for* us to survive our technology. Then imagine we get a signal from space, from another civilization, one that went through what we did. "We're here, we survived, and you can too. Good luck, and welcome to the universe." Call me sappy, but I can think of no better message we could receive.

      --
      Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
  8. Re:Whats with the EU using '.' instead of ',' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    And furthermore, why can't you all speak English and have a representative democracy just like ours? Also, please get rid of any parts of your culture that are not identical to my own. Thanks, n1ywb.

  9. Re:Assumptions about ETs by Auton · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It all comes back to Fermi's paradox. If there are intelligent (I prefer the term 'sophont') alien life forms out there, why haven't they contacted us?

    One solution says 'because they don't want to'. I find that solution very plausible at the current juncture. Odds are that if there is, in fact, a conglomerate of alien nations out there, they've set down a network of powerful signal-dampening sattelites around our solar system (the Oort cloud would be a good hiding place), controlled by a very strong AI which filters the transmissions reaching us, so that only natural phenomena and signals of our own making ever reach us. This could even be standard procedure for worlds below a certain level of technology. This is called the 'Prime Directive' solution, after Gene Roddenberry's Prime Directive from Star Trek.

    Of course, another (more Occam-friendly) solution to the paradox is "Because there aren't any"...