No Transmitting Aliens Detected In Kepler SETI Search

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."

Comments

They're hiding...

[BenSchuarmer]

I blame Jersey Shore

Re:They're hiding...

[tippe]

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...

Re:They're hiding...

[buchner.johannes]

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.

Re:They're hiding...

[MaskedSlacker]

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.

But wait until there's a blackout of our stuff

[dkleinsc]

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

Stealth became a necessary tactic

[concealment]

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.

Re:Stealth became a necessary tactic

[Eravnrekaree]

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.

Re:Stealth became a necessary tactic

[0123456]

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.

Re:Stealth became a necessary tactic

[dissy]

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*

Is there any reason....

[mark-t]

... 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?

Re:Is there any reason....

[MozeeToby]

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.

Re:Thirst Toast

[AlphaWolf_HK]

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.

What more proof do you need?

[mcmonkey]

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.

Pink Floyd SETI:

[Hartree]

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

Fact

[Charliemopps]

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.

Re:Fact

[Anonymous Coward]

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.)

Re:keep trying

[Velex]

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.

Re:Clearly...

[quenda]

They've all moved on to cable TV.

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