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Hunt Intensifies For Aliens On Kepler's Planets
astroengine (1577233) writes "Could ET be chatting with colleagues or robots on sister planets in its solar system? Maybe so, say scientists who last year launched a new type of Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, project to eavesdrop on aliens. Using data collected by NASA's Kepler space telescope, a team of scientists spent 36 hours listening in when planets in targeted solar systems lined up, relative to Earth's perspective, in hopes of detecting alien interplanetary radio signals. "We think the right strategy in SETI is a variety of strategies. It's really hard to predict what other civilizations might be doing," Dan Werthimer, director of SETI research at the University of California Berkeley, told Discovery News. So far the search hasn't turned up any artificial signals yet, but this marks a change in strategy for radio searches for ETI with Kepler data taking a focused lead."
It says they listen when they are lined up relative to earth's perspective, but it doesn't seem very likely that the proper time to send a signal from point A to point B once the speed of light and distance are taken into account is going to be when ABC are all in a line by point C's perspective...or am I just misunderstanding the article?
I'm still looking for terrestrial intelligence!
If we could get some meaningful immigration reform, we wouldn't have to spend so much time hunting for them.
That's kind of an ignorant view. Considering the amount of resources in the uninhabited parts of the universe (which is beyond a staggering amount) why would any one enter conflict over a small planet (us).
Any species capable of interstellar travel is going to be able to pull resources out of pure energy. They don't mine, or need our water. They don't care what we do, except maybe they observe us and snicker.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
Some might question why we're working so hard to advertise our existence when we still have exploitable mineral wealth and liquid water.
Because anyone capable of travelling a few hundred light years has also developed other technologies and doesn't need our mineral and water.
If the Extraterrestrials have some, intelligence that is, they'd go through great pains to leave us rot.
the idea is that if there's a solar system out there where a civilization exists which is sending signals between planets (kind of like we're doing on a limited scale with the Mars orbiters and rovers), it's likely that the signals between the planets are highly focused in a single direction, and so the ideal time to listen would be when the planets are lined up with respect to Earth.
Since we have no idea what kind of signals they are using (radio is the most popular method for our civilization but lasers are also good communications devices) the search would sweep over as much EM spectrum as it could. It's a really clever idea that would definitely pick up interplanetary communications, IF we can recognize the signals as such. As it stands, noise - and the fact that sufficiently advanced communications could be indistinguishable from white noise - limit our ability to do that.
But anyway, I like the idea because it doesn't presume that they are sending interstellar communications (which requires a high level of advancement), sending incredibly powerful bursts of omnidirectional signals (which requires some unknown reason since it's a pointless thing to do) or specifically aiming their signals at us (which requires a high level of self-importance on our part). If there are civilizations with the same level of advancement as us, we'll find them.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
Surely this is the job of NSA not NASA
Well, we have spent several centuries mining and purifying elements. I can think of some examples in our own world where invasions have happened to exploit technologically backward societies possession of mineral wealth.
Maybe it's a convenient atmosphere for them. Maybe a large ocean can be converted into hydrogen quickly and you burn up the planet in the process. Maybe it's fun.
Well, that's what we mostly assume. Maybe they just scavenge stuff as they go.
In all honesty, if we ever met truly alien life ... we have no idea of what we would find, and what they would think of us.
They may look at us as a slave race, food source, a place to lay their eggs or any of a zillion things.
We can make educated guesses by making assumptions about them. But given the sheer number of unknowns, they may or may not have any meaning should it ever happen.
I think it's great to do thought experiments and play what if. But the reality is, at the end of the day, we can't definitely say any of that is actually fact.
So, when you say "don't", "won't", "can't" or "do", "will" and "can" -- you pretty much have to subsitute that for "well, maybe, hopefully at least, that's what my best guess tells me, and it sounds good, so I'm going with it".
Hell, for all you know our kind of planet is needed for the equivalent of the "three seashells" for wiping the arse of some interstellar slug, and it'll just eradicate us while taking a dump without even knowing (or caring) we're here. ;-)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Prove that.
If you can't, it's speculative fiction.
What if burning the hydrogen from a vast quantity of water from, say, an ocean, was how you propelled yourself?
We don't know a damned thing about who, what, and how would be travelling a few hundred light years. Not their biology. Not their technology. Not their intent.
I'm sorry, but your emphatic statement is not an actual fact. Unless, of course, you know something the rest of us don't. :-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Optical SETI is the way to go. A 10-meter diameter visible telescope has a gain 80 dB greater than that of the 300-meter Arecibo dish.
Current NIF lasers can deliver petawatts for nanoseconds, and could easily outshine the sun during their pulse if provided with a reasonably large telescope.
They don't need it because they've got gobs of it closer to them and not at the bottom of a gravity well.
So yes, unless the aliens are about as dumb as you are, their statement is an actual fact.
You have no idea of what they need and what they need it for.
You keep using that word. I am not sure it means what you think it means.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
What you're missing is a sense of scale. There are likely hundreds of billions of planets in the galaxy. If you want to make the parallel to human history, the land mass of a single planet would be about equivalent to the area of 1/10 of a soccer field in comparison to the entire landmass of the Earth.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
What the hell are you even typing?
Entire stars are made of the damn stuff. They could devour a star for their damn space wozzit.
And if they have the capability to WARP SPACE, they very likely have fusion capability, which means they can LITERALLY MAKE ELEMENTS from hydrogen.
They do not need to come here for resources. Ever. There is literally nothing here they couldn't make if they had the ability to come here.
If they DID come here for resources, there'd be a massive empty gap on the way to our section of the galaxy that would show the devouring nature of their species.
Earth is nothing compared to a whole star. Less than nothing.
So your thinking is they couldn't find us on their own, but once they know we're here they hold a meeting and say "Fuck all those planets without intelligent life. Let's go clean out those Earthing chumps."
Maybe they just want our planet. period. Maybe they need a new vacation spot. Maybe they just like salty oceans and sandy beaches. Those darn apes are in the way, so they'll have to remove them first. They're funny. The apes think they're intelligent (they have built a few small structures); so, we'll have some fun with them first.....
He also said "Hey, I'm not dead yet, ya prick."
No... If they come, it won't be for resources, unless that resource is slaves. Really, if they come, it will be for the planet itself -- because it's here and they want it.
To Serve Mankind
If they use laser for communications, we will have a hard time seeing them.
on a platter?
... Why the hell would they go light years away from home to come and take matter and energy from earth...
Unless after they achieved interplanetary travel, but before they achieved interstellar travel, they moved onto zero-g space stations and evolved into a form that cannot come down our gravity well and dig for minerals themselves. Hence the need for a planet with it's own stock of slaves waiting to be taken over, like what happened the last time they came, according to some of the web sites I have been reading recently.... maybe I should google something different next time...
If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
Looks like someone's been watching Ancient Aliens on the History Channel!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Well, we have spent several centuries mining and purifying elements. I can think of some examples in our own world where invasions have happened to exploit technologically backward societies possession of mineral wealth.
Okay, let's assume that a space-faring civilization needed resources and had so exhausted the resources of their home solar system that they needed to exploit the resources of another solar system, then further assuming that our solar system was convenient to them, and further assuming that they had the capacity to exploit the resources in our solar system.
Given all of that, why would they come into a gravity well like the Earth's when they could get enormously more water and organic molecules from Kuiper Belt objects and enormously more metals/silicon/rocky elements from the asteroid belt than from here, without ever entering a gravity well of any consequence?
That would be like mining salt in the Mariana Trench.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Sure, it would be cheaper to build a new planet than to travel 100 light years. Only take a couple million years for it to cool down and become stable. But why go to all the trouble? There's a perfectly good one right here they can have for a slight premium, right now.
Generic words of agreement with some humor interjected. Comments directed toward Obama's ears; then some more humorous comments; Actually surprisingly non-offensive.
False anger expressed at being moderated down when I was actually expecting to be moderated down.
Maybe it's a convenient atmosphere for them. Maybe a large ocean can be converted into hydrogen quickly and you burn up the planet in the process. Maybe it's fun.
Well, that's what we mostly assume. Maybe they just scavenge stuff as they go.
In all honesty, if we ever met truly alien life ... we have no idea of what we would find, and what they would think of us.
They may look at us as a slave race, food source, a place to lay their eggs or any of a zillion things.
We can make educated guesses by making assumptions about them. But given the sheer number of unknowns, they may or may not have any meaning should it ever happen.
I think it's great to do thought experiments and play what if. But the reality is, at the end of the day, we can't definitely say any of that is actually fact.
So, when you say "don't", "won't", "can't" or "do", "will" and "can" -- you pretty much have to subsitute that for "well, maybe, hopefully at least, that's what my best guess tells me, and it sounds good, so I'm going with it".
Hell, for all you know our kind of planet is needed for the equivalent of the "three seashells" for wiping the arse of some interstellar slug, and it'll just eradicate us while taking a dump without even knowing (or caring) we're here. ;-)
I invite you to apply Ockham's Razor in this instance.
Yes, it is possible that several species of brain-sucking, evil aliens are even now battling it out beyond the orbit of Jupiter over who has the right to eat our sweet, tasty gray matter.
Yes, it is possible that the decadent Galactic Empire has completely run through the entire galaxy's supply of tater tots, except for the massive reserves here on Earth, so they're coming to enslave us so we can make tater tots for them for the next 10,000 years.
Yes, it's possible that beautiful female aliens need our men to propagate their species, having murdered all of their men after mating with them and we're next.
Yes, it's possible that aliens with gigantic penises are on their way to have non-consensual butt sex with every male on the planet.
Are these scenarios very likely? Not really. Are yours? No.
I'll explain and I'll use small words so you'll be sure to understand: Given the distances involved and the relative abundance of raw materials in our galaxy, it's hugely unlikely that any extra-solar intelligence would have the need, means or desire to come here and wreak havoc upon us.
I suggest you do the math (in your case, I imagine you'll need to learn the math first) as to the probabilities to see how ridiculous you sound. Have a nice day!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Advanced civilizations coming to Earth for scarce resources is a great sci-fi plot device. That's about as far as it goes. Any civilization that could send ships the size of cities could almost certainly harvest any resource it wants without attacking an inhabited world.
Liquid water is plentiful in comets. Minerals are in asteroids. Of course I suppose the aliens could waste energy pulling that stuff out of Earth's gravity well out of spite so... yeah. Let's hide.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I'm sorry, but your emphatic statement is not an actual fact. Unless, of course, you know something the rest of us don't. :-P
GP is using stuff called logic and reasoning. Things you are apparently unfamiliar with, friend.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
You have no idea of what they need and what they need it for.
You keep using that word. I am not sure it means what you think it means.
I bet you are the life of the party and everyone loves you when you argue with them.
Be seeing you...
If the system you're going to harvest has a usable, replenishable worker pool you only need to send a small colony ship.
The problem is the time window. We use radio waves a bit longer than 100 years and I'd be surprised if we didn't switch to something else within another hundred years. In fact, we have already switch a lot to optical fiber, and who knows what advances in science will bring? Who still uses smoke signals? Combine the probability that some planetary system is inhabited by intelligent aliens right now, which is probably very low, with the time window for radio waves and the probability of stumbling upon aliens will be extremely low.
The good news is that if FTL travel is possible and if we ever invent it, extraterrestrial archaeology will boom like no other science - there may be hundreds of thousands extinct species out there!
That we will no longer be using MacOS 7 to defeat them, it will be Mavericks on a macbook air and that whoever is sent to defend please make sure you "allow applications from anywhere" prior to taking off else you will be sat at the upload port for ages trying to figure out why the defence program won't run. (its in the security section of the system prefs Will)
Because humans have a delicious savoury taste.
Logic allows you to reach an incorrect answer with authority....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
The big filter (I don't like the term "great filter" but I'll include it to make search easier) is the point at which software programs itself (I don't like the term "singularity") - and so on. This point will soon arrive for our civilization, and it has already passed for the civilizations we are looking for. SETI is futile.
We must admit something is wrong after the current statistical failure to find detectable electromagnetic radiation (DEMR) from others. The best suggested answer is that civilizations hit the big filter at a point before having centuries of producing DEMR. So what comes early in DEMR production? Software intelligence. Right now, it's not a species killer, but tomorrow, when it can evolve itself, it will write our epitaph.
Regarding the article, it won't work. Civilizations will reach the big filter before they reach other planets.
(||) Nehmo (||)
"D...R...I...N...K..."
But then they surely would start some elaborate plot to fatten us up in some sneaky way before they invade.
I'm going to assume that intelligent civilizations are much more rare than natural resources in the galaxy. Since intelligent civilizations probably develop in radically different ways, we would be far more valuable as objects of study than as a source of minerals. It would enhance the survival of a star spanning civilization to understand how other intelligent civilizations evolve.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
That's kind of an ignorant view. Considering the amount of resources in the uninhabited parts of the universe (which is beyond a staggering amount) why would any one enter conflict over a small planet (us).
Any species capable of interstellar travel is going to be able to pull resources out of pure energy. They don't mine, or need our water. They don't care what we do, except maybe they observe us and snicker.
From "The Killing Star"
When we put our heads together and tried to list everything we could say with certainty about other civilizations, without having actually met them, all that we knew boiled down to three simple laws of alien behavior:
THEIR SURVIVAL WILL BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN OUR SURVIVAL.
If an alien species has to choose between them and us, they won't choose us. It is difficult to imagine a contrary case; species don't survive by being self-sacrificing.
WIMPS DON'T BECOME TOP DOGS.
No species makes it to the top by being passive. The species in charge of any given planet will be highly intelligent, alert, aggressive, and ruthless when necessary.
THEY WILL ASSUME THAT THE FIRST TWO LAWS APPLY TO US.
That's just why they would be willing... but it gets worse: There's an imperative.
Once a certain amount of technology and capacity and know-how has fled the homeworld: we, as a species, become capable of attacking another species even if our homeworld is wiped out. In short: there's a limited window during which species A could reliably exterminate species B without worrying that some missed portion of species B could retaliate.
So imagine some alien sees us right now. If they killed everyone on Earth (perhaps bombarded us with relativistic weapons), we could neither mount a defense nor seek retribution. 200 years from now: perhaps there would be enough off-planet resources that, after the destruction of Earth we could secretly build relativistic weapons of our own and retaliate.
So the only way for that species to guarantee its own survival is to wipe out potential rivals early.
This could be a great way to prep the public for a reveal; it's boiling the frog slowly.
I invite you to apply Ockham's Razor in this instance.
Just because you watched Contact on Netflix doesn't mean you have to invoke that.
Huh? I don't even use Netflix. Although I think it's sad that you, apparently, found out about such an important concept from a movie. I suggest paying attention in class, boy -- and I do emphasize the word 'boy'.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Okay, let's assume that a space-faring civilization needed resources and had so exhausted the resources of their home solar system that they needed to exploit the resources of another solar system, then further assuming that our solar system was convenient to them, and further assuming that they had the capacity to exploit the resources in our solar system.
Given all of that, why would they come into a gravity well like the Earth's when they could get enormously more water and organic molecules from Kuiper Belt objects and enormously more metals/silicon/rocky elements from the asteroid belt than from here, without ever entering a gravity well of any consequence?
That would be like mining salt in the Mariana Trench.
The gravity well itself could be a resource. A nice place to have an atmosphere that doesn't leak away like a space habitat's would with a magnetic shield to protect both the atmosphere and the population from the sun's rays in a nice reasonably energy rich part of the solar system. It could be more like why somebody would want to take over somebody else's house rather than wandering into the woods and building their own out of trees and rocks. The energy requirements for terraforming Mars or Venus are huge (in units of days of total energy output of the sun). If coming in on a Civ game style generation ship from a distance away, they might not be expecting inhabitants and might not have any other options due to lack of tech, resources, or time.
No. I know exactly what the need. they need matter and energy. There is matter and energy everywhere in the universe. Why the hell would they go light years away from home to come and take matter and energy from earth, when there perfectly good matter in their neighborhood. There is no material known to modern science that is easier to obtain by going light years away than synthesizing at home with chemistry.
Could be they aren't coming here to take the matter and energy away. They are coming to Earth for lebensraum. A nice gravity well with a nice atmosphere and little to no terraforming needed. Space habitats require steady and costly upkeep like any ship as they leak and break, only a gravity well with a nice magnetic fiedl offers long term, cheap, steady state environment.
The numbers work out for habitat-stealing if interstellar travel involved some quirk of technology that made dropping back into a gravity well somehow attractive at the end of the trip.
From what we can extrapolate given our current rudimentary state of technology, we think that if you can work out interstellar travel, then Iain Banks' popularized Culture series take on the matter is probably correct: that is, interstellar travel necessarily solves space habitat issues as a precondition. And once you have an interstellar-travel-grade space habitat, it is only the eccentrics who want to drop back down a gravity well.
The numbers work out for habitat-stealing if interstellar travel involved some quirk of technology that made dropping back into a gravity well somehow attractive at the end of the trip.
From what we can extrapolate given our current rudimentary state of technology, we think that if you can work out interstellar travel, then Iain Banks' popularized Culture series take on the matter is probably correct: that is, interstellar travel necessarily solves space habitat issues as a precondition. And once you have an interstellar-travel-grade space habitat, it is only the eccentrics who want to drop back down a gravity well.
I tend to think that assuming post singularity level tech like the Culture novels is a much greater jump than assuming otherwise. There, the assumption is that those things are possible and preferable. Using the culture series as an excuse why aliens wouldn't need our resources or a gravity well pretty much is a proper use of "begging the question".
I'm going to assume that intelligent civilizations are much more rare than natural resources in the galaxy.
Yes.
Since intelligent civilizations probably develop in radically different ways, we would be far more valuable as objects of study than as a source of minerals.
If there are indeed other civilizations with life forms approaching (or surpassing) our combination of brain and clever hands, they are not close enough to us to worry with. We are viewing the universe through the Hubble telescope a dozen billion light years away.
It would enhance the survival of a star spanning civilization to understand how other intelligent civilizations evolve.
Or we are the only life form in the universe to have made it this far through the Great Filter.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Isn't it going to be difficult trying to find the non-indigenous inhabitants of those planets amongst all of the domestic inhabitants? Why not just look for any inhabitants at all?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.