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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."
... 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?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
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.