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No Transmitting Aliens Detected In Kepler SETI Search

Posted by timothy on from the romantic-illusions dept.

astroengine writes "By focusing the Green Bank radio telescope on stars hosting (candidate) exoplanets identified by NASA's Kepler space telescope, it is hoped that one of those star systems may also play host to a sufficiently evolved alien race capable of transmitting radio signals into space. But in a study headed by ex-SETI chief Jill Tarter, the conclusion of this first attempt is blunt: 'No signals of extraterrestrial origin were found.' But this is the just first of the 'directed' SETI searches that has put some very important limits on the probability of finding sufficiently advanced alien civilizations in our galaxy."

40 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. They're hiding... by BenSchuarmer · · Score: 4, Funny

    I blame Jersey Shore

    1. Re:They're hiding... by tippe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe all of the other aliens are smart enough to prevent the radio waves of their versions of Jersey Shore (and other cruft) from spilling out into space. Maybe we're the only dumb ones that let it happen. We're probably the laughing stock of the galaxy...

    2. Re:They're hiding... by buchner.johannes · · Score: 4, Informative

      Jersey Shore aired in Dec 2009. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is at 4.2421 light years distance.
      The knowledge about Jersey Shore can not reached have reached any exoplanet host systems.

      --
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    3. Re:They're hiding... by rts008 · · Score: 2

      Default fallback programming: "I Love Lucy".
      They have had plenty of time to develop cloaking technology against our mind destroying Weapons of Mass Broadcast. We have terrified the galaxy within a 60 light year radius, pedant.

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    4. Re:They're hiding... by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Remember, we used to think the sound barrier was past us.

      Uggh. I hate this stupid meme.

      We NEVER thought the sound barrier was impossible to break. We thought it might be impossible at the time to build an aircraft that could handle the structural stress with the materials available at that time. We knew the sound barrier could be broken--bullets had been breaking it for decades. The two are NOT comparable in any way.

    5. Re:They're hiding... by lxs · · Score: 2

      Actually I think that is called the misanthropic principle.

  2. keep trying by masternerdguy · · Score: 2

    Radio signals can deattenuate with range, other aliens might not be running a SETI program (and therefore glowing in the sky because they transmit stuff to random stars), they might be much further away and so their signals haven't reached us yet. The universe is enormous, no doubt there's *someone* out there.

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    1. Re:keep trying by Synerg1y · · Score: 2

      Quite the assumption on alien life forms using radio waves, but I guess as a civilization we gotta start somewhere with the search. Or, we can follow the sci-fi model and colonize worlds UNTIL we find alien life. The latter makes more sense in a lot of ways. I'm going to go think of a profit model for colonization now.

    2. Re:keep trying by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2

      "... it would only be "quite the assumption" to believe they use it exactly like we do."

      Right. But that assumption isn't really made. SETI At Home, for example, essentially does Fourier analysis on signals, looking for patterns. While they may not use it as we do, having patterns in the signal is a pretty safe assumption. Or to perhaps be more accurate: we don't know of a way to look for signals that do not exhibit patterns.

    3. Re:keep trying by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 2

      "The universe is enormous, no doubt there's *someone* out there."

      So, you believe in the "invisible man in the sky" too huh? ;)

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    4. Re:keep trying by bobbied · · Score: 2

      Shielding is pretty much all about mass. You need boat loads of mass to make an effective enough shield to survive in space for very long. You can use water, but you need to get it into space (or find it someplace already in space), then climb inside and get all this mass heading in the correct direction (burning fuel or something) fast enough you don't die before you get there, then slow down all this mass so you can stop someplace (more fuel). All this amounts to HUGE amounts of mass..

      I really don't think that we are going to figure this problem out any time before the sun burns us to cinders in a billion years.

      --
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    5. Re:keep trying by Velex · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes. The idea that life could evolve in the same way it did here somewhere else in the galaxy with similar conditions is just as looney as believing in a sky wizard who hates homosexuals and loves killing brown people, who believe in another, but different sky wizard who likewise hates homosexuals but loves killing white people, and each sky wizard claims that the other is a false sky wizard, although they both agree that the world is 6,000 years old. Yeah, those two things are both completely the same. You sure delivered a convincing argument there.

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    6. Re:keep trying by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 2

      I'm going to go think of a profit model for colonization now.

      The profit model is simple enough once the profit no longer has to be made on earth. In short, there's a chicken/egg problem. Colonization makes sense if you'll be richer when you move to the colony than you are now on Earth (this is what has ALWAYS driven colonization throughout history). Right now we assume you'd be richer on Earth than you are now post-colonization. That is probably not possible in the near future (resource transfer between planets isn't practical). Getting to where you can become richer on Mars than on Earth? More possible, but still difficult without a pre-existing Martian economy.

    7. Re:keep trying by Zordak · · Score: 2

      I believe in God and I believe in extraterrestrial life. It's not an either/or proposition. I also believe that any knowledge we can gain by experimentation or investigation brings us closer to God. My belief in God is based on personal experience. Anybody who cares to find out for himself can repeat the experiment and get his own results. It's a non-trivial experiment, and you won't find it reported in Science. But it is reproducible.

      My belief in extra-terrestrial beings is much closer to "blind faith" than my belief in God. To wit, I simply believe that God created other people on other planets, and I think some of them are probably in the galactic neighborhood. I don't know where they are and I have no repeatable experiment to offer for the proposition other than to look for them. And if we want to look for them, I think our best bet is to look for planets as similar to this one as possible, because that's where they're most likely to show up. Which is what SETI is doing. If we find a non-random signal somewhere in the noise, it will not affect my belief in God. It will, however, strengthen my belief that there are extraterrestrial beings somewhere in the neighborhood.

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  3. Thirst Toast by ButchDeLoria · · Score: 2

    What a shame if all this effort means Earth is the only planet to harbor intelligent life. Or worse, the first.

    1. Re:Thirst Toast by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Well, suppose hypothetically there is another civilization that reached the point we are at now over 100,000 years ago, and they happen to reside near a star that is a million light years away. In such a scenario, we won't hear a peep from them for another 900,000 years.

      The only other possibility is that they use some form of communication that is faster than light, which would mean they are using something other than EM based communication. EM based communication is all that we have the capability of looking for.

      Due to the sheer size of the known universe, it is inevitable that there is sentient life beyond earth. Even if what we have here is merely a pattern of chemicals, that pattern is bound to have repeated elsewhere, if not identically then very similarly.

      --
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    2. Re:Thirst Toast by Coffee+Warlord · · Score: 2

      What a shame if all this effort means Earth is the only planet to harbor intelligent life.
      Or worse, the first.

      Nah, it'd be kind of cool to be the ones strutting around in our encounter suits spouting enigmatic one-liners to the lesser civilizations.

      The only drawback is we need to rapidly speed up our medical research so we live long enough to see it.

    3. Re:Thirst Toast by blind+biker · · Score: 2, Insightful

      We already have non-human sentient life on our planet - many cetaceans are sentient - but we are utterly unable to recognize it. The only sentient life humans will actually recognize, are the ones that carry bigger guns than ours. Sad but true.

      --
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    4. Re:Thirst Toast by ngc3242 · · Score: 2

      Our galaxy is roughly 110,000 light years across. Our largest satellite galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, are less then 200,000 light years away.

  4. But wait until there's a blackout of our stuff by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Funny

    All it takes is an episode of "Single Female Lawyer" blacking out and sooner or later we'll get invaded by aliens.

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  5. Stealth became a necessary tactic by concealment · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Other aliens out there may have discovered what we haven't yet figured out:

    Not everyone in the universe is nice.

    Having a whole bunch of radio signals emanating from your planet is like saying "rob me! rape me! kill me!" to any wandering castoffs from alien civilization.

    It might not even be organized military action; only pirates, or serial killers, or even just disaffected artists with a flesh fetish.

    1. Re:Stealth became a necessary tactic by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What more advanced communications technologies are there without altering the laws of physics? On one hand, those who speculate on , overunity energy which requires undiscovered physics are called lunatics, and yet, people freely speculate that there is undiscovered physics for a non radio communication system.

    2. Re:Stealth became a necessary tactic by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 2

      Yes, I'm of the opinion that science, technology and engineering will continue to advance long after I'm gone, probably to heights I would struggle to comprehend just as a visitor from the 18th century would struggle to understand what we've achieved, and as such feel comfortable indulging in speculation. It's deriding such speculation that is indicative of an unscientific mind.

      Who knows, maybe they will send carrier pigeons down wormholes.

    3. Re:Stealth became a necessary tactic by 0123456 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In all likely hood, they would come to colonize the Earth since it is the perfect distance to the host star to support liquid water and an existing ecosystem that isn't dependent on any one species that would resist colonization.

      So they're going to burn more energy than the human race has used since the beginning of time to come here and colonize Earth, when they could just dismantle a planet in their own system and build a Dyson sphere?

      The only thing Earth has that aliens couldn't find elsewhere is Earth life. And after all that cattle mutilation and anal probing, they should have plenty enough DNA to rebuild that wherever they want to live.

    4. Re:Stealth became a necessary tactic by dissy · · Score: 3, Funny

      Wonder if anyone has written some sci-fi where humanity makes contact with the lowest, poorest, stupidest, backwards redneck the aliens have to offer.

      You mean StarTrek Voyager?

      *RUNS*

    5. Re:Stealth became a necessary tactic by joe_frisch · · Score: 2

      A really good point. There is a strong argument that the first thing you should do on detecting an alien civilization is to attack with stealth R-bombs (or substitute your favorite interstellar weapon). Of the possible outcomes:

      1. they were hostile: you got them first, you win!

      2. They were incredibly more advanced than you: The attack will seem cute to them, sort of like a kitten pouncing you your toes. Maybe they will post pictures of you on their tentacle-book site.

      3. They were friendly: Sad, but some other civilization would have gotten them if you hadn't.

      If you don't attack:

      1: they r-bomb you
      2: no change
      3: someone else destroys them, and if they don't you will just wind up competing for resources anyway.

      More seriously, I think its a great idea to look for signs of alien intelligence as long as we under no circumstances try to contact them.

      Remember, when the guys on the ships meet the guys on the shore, you want to be the guys on the ships......

    6. Re:Stealth became a necessary tactic by MMC+Monster · · Score: 2

      Gravity waves? Neutrinos? Laser? Quantum entangled electrons?

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  6. Is there any reason.... by mark-t · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... to think that anything in line with typical-strength radio broadcasts (and which were not being specifically directed out towards the stars for an attempt to send an interplanetary signal) from a distant planet would have any chance of being decipherable from background noise if the origin of such a signal were even as near as the closest star?

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    1. Re:Is there any reason.... by MozeeToby · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually, we don't do much directed broadcasts so even that is a stretch. Less than a couple dozen directed transmissions so far that would actually be detectable when they reached their destination. Only one of those has reached its destination, and even if there happened to be aliens living there (which seems even less likely given what we've learned about the star since then) we wouldn't have heard a response back yet.

  7. Encryption? Light? Virtual particles? Stars? by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 2

    And any signal we might detect would have most of its entropy shifted to the main signal block, followed by a little orderly decryption section, which to us, would also look like noise, so running your signal though a zipf analysis probably wouldn't work.

    Frankly, I think the radio thing is a bit silly. The detectable radio interval for any civilization is likely to be quite short. Even we're moving to photonics wherever possible. We'd probably do better looking for light signals, or astronomical star sized objects that look like artifacts, or creating large area Casimir antennas in space capable of detecting wide area, coherent changes to virtual particle activity.

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  8. What more proof do you need? by mcmonkey · · Score: 4, Funny

    That they are cloaking their communications, is not only proof of alien intelligence, but a clear sign of hostile intent.

    We must attack before they do.

    1. Re:What more proof do you need? by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 2

      You first. I'm baking them cookies.

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    2. Re:What more proof do you need? by Cajun+Hell · · Score: 2

      Attached: boobies.jpg.exe

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  9. Fermi Paradox by wisnoskij · · Score: 2

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#It_is_the_nature_of_intelligent_life_to_destroy_itself

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  10. Pink Floyd SETI: by Hartree · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hello...?
    Is there anybody in there?
    Just nod if you can hear me.
    Is there anyone at home?

  11. Perhaps we're the first by gameboyhippo · · Score: 2

    Dr. Hugh Ross theorizes that we humans are at the earliest possible time intelligent life can exist in the Universe. So regardless on what you think on how we got here, it may not be possible for other intelligent physical life to have existed before us humans. Since reality is only 14.7 billion years old this is a plausible explanation.

  12. Fact by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Fact:
    The largest single aperture radio telescope in the world is the Arecibo Observatory.
    It's maximum power output at 2380 MHz is 20 TW
    If a matching radio telescope were placed on a planet orbiting our nearest star Alpha Centauri (4.2 light years away) and broadcast at full power, directly at earth... the signal would be too weak by the time it arrived for Arecibo to detect it.

    We can't even detect our own radio signals with the best equipment we have at interstellar distances. I think it likely that we'll be well out of the radio age by the time we can... The fact that the sky isn't flooded with alien Television stations isn't because there are no aliens, it's because there's a better way to transmit that we haven't figured out yet.

    1. Re:Fact by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Fact: The largest single aperture radio telescope in the world is the Arecibo Observatory.

      True

      It's maximum power output at 2380 MHz is 20 TW

      Not quite true. The 20 TW is what it would take to create istropic radiation of equivalent power to the beam, when Arecibo is operating as a radar.
      The actual power transmitted is much less, and the return signal is hemispherically isotropic, which is what limits the radar range.

      If a matching radio telescope were placed on a planet orbiting our nearest star Alpha Centauri (4.2 light years away) and broadcast at full power, directly at earth... the signal would be too weak by the time it arrived for Arecibo to detect it.

      This is complete bullshit.
      Arecibo could talk to a similar capability radio telescope a thousand light years away.
      ( If you put a 20 terawatt transmitter on it you could probably talk to Andromeda if you didn't melt the reflector first.)

    2. Re:Fact by LWATCDR · · Score: 2

      But the ping times would be terrible.

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  13. Re:Clearly... by quenda · · Score: 3, Funny

    They've all moved on to cable TV.

    Switch to the 900nm infrared band - we might still be able to see their remote controls.