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Existing Laser Technology Could Be Fashioned Into Earth's 'Porch Light' To Attract Alien Astronomers, Study Finds (mit.edu)
If extraterrestrial intelligence exists somewhere in our galaxy, a new MIT study proposes that laser technology on Earth could, in principle, be fashioned into something of a planetary porch light -- a beacon strong enough to attract attention from as far as 20,000 light years away. From a report: The research, which author James Clark calls a "feasibility study," appears today in The Astrophysical Journal. The findings suggest that if a high-powered 1- to 2-megawatt laser were focused through a massive 30- to 45-meter telescope and aimed out into space, the combination would produce a beam of infrared radiation strong enough to stand out from the sun's energy. Such a signal could be detectable by alien astronomers performing a cursory survey of our section of the Milky Way -- especially if those astronomers live in nearby systems, such as around Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to Earth, or TRAPPIST-1, a star about 40 light-years away that hosts seven exoplanets, three of which are potentially habitable. If the signal is spotted from either of these nearby systems, the study finds, the same megawatt laser could be used to send a brief message in the form of pulses similar to Morse code.
Any tribe that had such an idea in the 15th and 16th century would have been run over and destroyed before they even know what was happening.
Why would you assume the aliens will be any less brutal than the 16th century European explorers?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
To paraphrase Monty Python. This man is hiding. Sir please stand up. *Boom*
We really have no idea if whatever's out there will be friendly or not, so announcing our position to the rest of the galaxy is a big gamble
If we're not alone in the universe- I would like to know about our neighbours before they know about us.
Sending an unsolicited welcome beacon into the night could be catastrophic. If they're able to read it and respond they're probably more advanced than us. If they're more advanced than us they might not want to share the galaxy with another species who one day might evolve to challenge them or threaten them. There is no guarantee that any aliens out there would share our sentimentality to life. Or even want to meet alien species.
If their civilization has advanced far enough to be guided by Artificial Intelligence, certainly AI would decide the logical thing to do is remove a future threat before it becomes a threat. This isn't Star Trek, you can't guarantee that Mr. and Mrs. Greenface want to drink Romulan Ale with you and be best buds with you. Any species that survives to the space age needs some logic. Logic will tell you intelligent alien species could be a potential threat.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Just waiting for you to come invade and take over our planet..
My porch light only attracts bugs, particularly moths that fly in when the door is open and eat my clothes, and mosquitoes during the right season.
I do not think we want to attract here the ET versions of moths and mosquitoes.
a star about 40 light-years away that hosts seven exoplanets, three of which are potentially habitable. If the signal is spotted from either of these nearby systems, the study finds, the same megawatt laser could be used to send a brief message in the form of pulses similar to Morse code.
So this would be an 80 year round trip ping time? Someone far away would also have to be looking our direction when we light it up. For argument's sake let's say we want to allow a 10 year window for someone to notice our beacon. This means that we would have to shine the beacon for 10 years and then wait up to 90 years for a response?
how will the aliens be able to tell if we support veterans or if we're selling the Devil's lettuce?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
“Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn’t turn out so well.”
Well, if the laser is red, you can hardly blame the aliens for 'red light district' being an universal concept. And if it is not, then we should not risk advertising our present with other hues, either.
Basic prudence dictates that we do not attract attention to ourselves before knowing what that attention will bring along.
No good deed goes unpunished...
My ISP gives me internet via Laser fiber, those guys need to read up on current technology.
They could send the encyclopedia galactica every second if they use all the possible color and other channeling methods.
Use morse for the decryption manual as header.
We want to find them, not the other way around. What are we advertising, and to whom?
I'm really hyped about the idea of making meaningful contact with extraterrestrial intelligent life but I'd much rather it be with ones that are less capable than we are. I think Hawking had the right idea: we should keep our heads down and our ears open.
The study author is confused. We've been broadcasting an RF beacon for about a century.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Steve Hawkwing is dead , he couldn't have been that smart.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Read "The Three Body Problem" before you talk about this shit.
...Calling all borg, transformers, etc...
The question never asked, the question never answered.
Yes! Amazing idea! Lets use "clean" coal energy for the 2MW output required for 40 years to reach the closest star system.
"There once was an infant lost in the woods, crying its heart out, wondering why no one answered, drawing down the wolves..."
The Forge Of God
-- Greg Bear.
This is good, we only have 45 more years until the Vulkans find us.
Avoid pointing any kind of radar or laser beam into Magellanic Clouds, and avoid keeping any jewelry near the capacitors. Or don't. For it could be terrible or awesome.
Have you ever actually seen what gets attracted to a blazing porch light?
You get large amounts of Bugs, and if you're lucky, some bats or spiders come to eat them.
If we're doing an Intergalactic Porch Light, I'd hope someone would plan on a nearby bug zapper.
This has got to be the dumbest idea in the history of dumb ideas. Let's send a signal out into the darkness to let everyone out there know we are here. You might as well be posting on Facebook , "We are going to be out of the country for a couple months. Putting the Mercedes and the Lamborghini in the garage now for safe keeping."
Some settling may occur during posting.
How many stars are there?
How many stars could each of those stars be *possibly* looking at?
How many stars could each of those stars be monitoring?
This seems like the SETI equivalent of winning the PowerBall back to back...
If you want a awesome book series about this exact type of thing, I recommend `The Three Body Problem`. It's a great book to get into (translated) Chinese scifi literature
They're going to see that light and say "Hey, we sent you creimer, we're not taking him back no matter how many lasers you point at us!"
... and think we have the reality stone... so, bad idea!
What, nobody has posted the obligatory xkcd yet?
fish.
... and also, are you sure we're looking for the right thing? ants
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
And to do it, you need to target that alien planet exactly where it will be in 4 years (4 light years away) or in 40 years (...).
Also using a telescope to... "re-focus" a laser, sound childish...
At that distance, I presume the planet will pass through the laser beam in about 1/100 seconds, so that aliens have to be with the eyes on us!
It is saying that some of these aliens have come to Earth many years later after A-bombs.
This was simple, why complicate with the lasser, we have enough for sending a "resume"!
"a beacon strong enough to attract attention from as far as 20,000 light years away"
Do the people writing and editing stuff like this EVER engage their brain ?
focus on saving the planet from global warming instead? We already all fucked.
Oh great. Now our first contact with an alien species will be from their lawyers who are suing us for blinding their client with our laser.
Where are we gonna find 4 1/2 billion kwatloos?
No seriously, that is a fundamentally really bad idea. The earth already emits a lot of radio waves, why invite potential disaster of an advanced race capable of navigating the stars. Sure they might be friendly, but they could equally destroy the planet or decide we're tasty snacks to harvest.
Boss: Hey guys, we have to come up with an idea to get us millions of dollars of funding that is completely useless and stupid.
Intern: I HAVE AN IDEA!
That's all very well if interstellar travel is impossible. But it's not, it's just slow (assuming no FTL drives). We already have theoretical means to push objects to a substantial fraction of lightspeed.
So consider the thesis of Pellegrino's The Killing Star or Flying to Valhalla:
- Rule 1. Aliens will believe their survival is more important than our survival.
- Rule 2. Wimps don't become top dogs.
- Rule 3. Aliens will assume the the first two rules apply to us as well.
"If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing. And, if we're very, very lucky, they'll do it in that order."
-Zoe, Firefly (2002)
...when everything is a crime, everyone is a criminal.
The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.
Don't turn on that laser.
Porch lights attract bugs and it usually doesn't end well for the bugs. ...
On the other hand, those bugs don't have interstellar flight capability and, presumably, particle weapons
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
"Of course they're cute NOW. But in a second they're going to turn MEAN and UGLY somehow and then there are going to be a million MORE of them! ... Jesus, didn't ANY of you watch the show!?"
-- Guy Fleegman, Galaxy Quest (1999)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
And have that broken down look when the visitors stop by?
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
I get annoyed when my neighbor's driveway security light goes on for a few minutes. Can you imagine what blasting lifeforms with that focused light could do?
War of the Worlds wouldn't just be a book anymore.
Sure, this design can be Earth's porch light. But what can be Earth's patio lanterns, huh?
Wouldn't it be a better idea to focus the gigawatts of excess solar energy our planet is absorbing every day, and help fight climate change at the same time?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
You don't have to put out the red light.
Rooooooooxxxxxxaaaannnnnneeeeeee!
Soo.... assuming we build this thing , we 'might' know if it works in 40 years + whatever time it takes a civilization to recognize it and try to reply ( assuming WE recognize their reply), but say it is really fast they find the signal then reply really quickly we can expect the message to take a minimum of 40 years to get there. So basically build it. Wait 100 years, before you can even BEGIN to reasonable expect a reply. ( that of coarse covers the first 2 possible planets which we have no evidence actually host life, little loan intelligent life.
sounds like your chances of success are much less then winning the lottery. I suppose why not if it doesn't cost more a few million to build and operate for 100 years.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
let them come, and we'll devour them.
wait, they'll probably decide to put an intergalactic highway system here.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Personally I would rather they didn't, has anybody considered that there may be a race out there like humans, who in all probability if they found us would be more advanced than us. Based on human colonization around the globe this sort of contact will end up going very badly for us, all of us, and thats only considering we encounter beings who are like us.
Maybe the reason why we are having such a hard time finding evidence of extraterrestrial life, is because they are all hiding. Maybe all the intelligent creatures out there have discovered that the universe is a hostile place and if you want to survive you better be good at camouflage. Everybody else is doing their best to remove all traces of their existence from anyone looking for them. We on the other hand are getting ready to ring the dinner bell, err...send out a 'porch light'.
"Such a signal could be detectable by alien astronomers performing a cursory survey of our section of the Milky Way -- especially if those astronomers live in nearby systems, such as around Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to Earth"
The good people at MIT seem to have overlooked a small detail. Space is really big. Douglas Adams discovered this long ago- please bone up on your studies.
In order to scan the universe with your narrowly focused telescope, you need to be able to see a width of 360 degrees and vertically at 360 degrees. Virtually an infinite number of adjustments in both directions. In order to see the puny laser beam, you'd have to pause your telescope in that direction long enough to identify it and separate it from nearby noise; perhaps for a few seconds(10?) If every position of the telescope requires 'a few seconds', it would take an extremely long time to scan the universe.
From the other perspective- if you want to point your laser to every point in the sky, you have the same problem. A nearly infinite number of points, depending upon the width of the beam. If you are sending some kind of signal, let's say a burst that takes a few seconds (10?) in each direction, it would take an extremely long time to beam across the universe.
What are the chances that your beam and the telescope at the other planet will meet?
Infinitely small.
...omphaloskepsis often...
We are not ready for ET.
Here are some possible outcomes:
They are dangerous and if they come here they have better technology than we do - we're screwed.
They are nice beings, but correctly conclude we are not. They decide its better to eradicate us before we become the scourge of the galaxy - we're screwed.
They are curious but see no benefit in engaging with us directly
They are not curious and correctly conclude we have nothing to offer their more advanced society. The universe is a big empty place and there is space enough for everyone.
My personal favorite - faster than light travel is fantasy and they will never bother to come.
In any case, the likelihood that they are wondrous benevolent beings who want to give us all kinds of nice stuff without unintended consequences is basically zero. No need to attract attention. Do something useful instead.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Any space faring creatures have at least one thing mastered - survival. I'm not sure any space faring creatures exist, but inviting them over, even if no one "out there" is likely to see it is probably a bad idea.
"DON'T Pray. You never know what might be listening."
It would be a monumental effort, but perhaps a less dangerous method might be to set up the laser in the Centaurus system. That way, if any "bad people show up" (cf The Beastie Boys), they might not notice us. Too bad if there are any intelligent Centaurans, but they should have thought of this first and put a laser in OUR system.
We STF don't want to attract any Reavers!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
At least in recent human history, when the guys in the boats meet the guys on the shore, it doesn't end well for the guys on the shore.
When we have the technology to travel interstellar distances, I'm happy with the idea of trying to meet new friends.
Rather than jets with bits hanging out, I was imagining jets with no visible skin, just a horrifying skeletal framework flying impossibly through the sky, with a guy in a skull hemet inside grinning down at the burning landscape below.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Agreed.
Let me link you the Fermi Paradox: We're First, We're Rare, or We're Fucked.
https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05...
Specifically Possibility 4: There are scary predator civilizations out there, and most intelligent life knows better than to broadcast any outgoing signals and advertise their location. This is an unpleasant concept and would help explain the lack of any signals being received by the SETI satellites. It also means that we might be the super naive newbies who are being unbelievably stupid and risky by ever broadcasting outward signals; and Carl Sagan's takeaway: “the newest children in a strange and uncertain cosmos should listen quietly for a long time, patiently learning about the universe and compa, ring notes, before shouting into an unknown jungle that we do not understand.”
But..is that really a good idea?
As someone who just recently read the Three Body Problem trilogy, please, Please, PLEASE don't announce our presence to the galaxy at large! That's a horrible idea.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
In a hostile environment (space) broadcasting something like: "hey look how comfortable we are! whiiiiiiiiiii"
Thank you.
What if they are hostile aliens searching for raw materials and slaves ? hmmm ??
Don't assume every one is friendly. I guess no one taught the geniuses who though of this "Stranger Danger"
Wow.
If there is extraterrestial life and thier history is anything like human history, it won't be good.
If these aliens don't notice a planet with tons of space debris then you know...really.
This SILVER blue planet as already quite a shiny spec.
More like alien invaders. Hopefully, this will not be used.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Has been looking for such signals for years on this basis. It's far easier than radio. The problem is identifying it.
The other problem is that almost nobody does OSETI, it's just not fashionable.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Magic!
Carl Sagan's takeaway: “the newest children in a strange and uncertain cosmos should listen quietly for a long time, patiently learning about the universe and compa, ring notes, before shouting into an unknown jungle that we do not understand.”
The same Carl Sagan that led the committee that designed Voyager's Golden Record that shows our location in the galaxy?
The drawing in the lower left-hand corner of the cover is the pulsar map previously sent as part of the plaques on Pioneers 10 and 11. It shows the location of the Solar System with respect to 14 pulsars, whose precise periods are given.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Well, the FAA, not NASA. It was called Operation Bongo II. Is this Operation Bongo III?
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
I'm assuming there's no such FTL, because based on what we know, that's the way to bet.
Assuming some xenophobic aliens out there who would want to knock off any potential threats... Part of their calculation has to be "Never merely injure a threat."
If they were to attack (say, by boosting some relativistic rocks our way) they would have to be pretty dang assured of a one-shot sure-kill.
Far, *far* safer to just lay low. If FTL is impossible, no matter what Fermi said, it's probably so difficult to do interstellar travel that nobody ever does it. Certainly not in any big way. It would take some very powerful motivation to go to the trouble.
Because dodo birds used to build cities have machinery, technology etc.
It would be clear to anyone other than idiots like you, that humans are the most advanced things living on Earth. We could clearly be vastly inferior to the aliens, but don't kid yourself to think we aren't vastly superior to dodo birds.