Aliens Anyone have an idea other than me how to use indirect ways of finding them?
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That's why you point the antenna at older galaxies where there's the increase likelihood of catching the attention of a more advanced species.. Also I heard from somewhere that communicating over vast distances via dark matter may be possible..
Last edited by justmy2cents; 07-11-2017 at 10:02 AM.
That spacecraft's antenna was pointed directly at us, and, amid vast amounts of solar-generated RF noise, we knew exactly what to listen for. Furthermore, the antenna was within our solar system. So far as we know, the extraterrestrial forms of life that we are looking for are surrounding distant stars, possibly in other galaxies. The only transmissions that we are capable of receiving from that distance come from floating thermonuclear furnaces.
So, SETI was a nice idea and a favorite of Dr. Carl Sagan (RIP), but never practical. If it kept up funding for expensive radio telescopes, that's not altogether a bad thing.
Yes it was pointed at us but when the last ~!1 watt transmission arrived it had not only left our solar system but had left any influence from our Sun and was effectively in interstellar space.
SETI is not even attempting to detect signals from other galaxies as they are vastly distant. Only part of our galaxy is studied and only a small percentage of the whole, which still provides many millions of systems to monitor. Since Sagan's death SETI has become many orders of magnitude more effective due to computer automation handling the positioning and database.
Regarding what signals we can detect it seems to me you may be unaware of just how sensitive our instruments really are. If you've followed extra-terrestrial planet discovery you know that until recently using the gravity wobble effect we were only able to detect Jupiter size planets. In the last decade where we actually note the infinitessimally small change in light from stars as planets as small as earth (1/100th the diameter but optically the occlusion seems far smaller due to distance - ie why the moon appears roughly the same size as the sun from Earth ) pass between them and us.. Additionally, thermal and radiation noise is exactly that - random, so anything with a pattern stands out like a sore thumb.
To be sure the odds are still very small since, as Sagan pointed out, it is entirely possible that civilizations that advance technologically enough to utilize powerful radio transmitters may all soon die out. We don't yet know if it is possible to get past this stage of development where we have become capable of destroying ourselves, whether rapidly or over a few measly centuries.
In that vein and despite the low probability, I welcome any research for positive reasons considering how much we are willing to spend on destruction. Also just as in the manner in which completely by accident the Cosmic Background Radiation was discovered while simply trying to capture signals from baloon satellites, nobody knows what may be discovered just by paying attention to the millions of bands being monitored, or would you rather we were deaf and blind?
Okay, look up at the sky and pick ... "from all those many stars" ... the precise direction at which to aim your antenna. Then, grab your trusty Morse Code key and start tappin'.
Of course, you might be long-dead before your signal is ever heard by any "intelligent life," even though the typical life-span on Planet Xerxon is nine hundred fifty orbits. And please be very careful when you aim, because an error of even 0.1 degrees might cause your signal never to be heard by anyone. However, there might be Intelligent Life out there, so it's always a good idea to try to send a radio signal to them.
So far as we know, of course, Xerxon is the only place in this vastness which has ever known "intelligent life." And, there are plenty of detractors who insist that argon-based life forms could obviously not exist anywhere else.
Downloaded the xfiles series. I call it a sci-fi comedy. Funny stuff. As much as Skully has been, kidnapped, beaten, possibly impregnated, tied and otherwise done up in just the first two seasons, it seems aliens are way into BDSM and perhaps some bestiality as well. Guess Skully don't mind much as she keeps showing up for work. Amerikan girls are like that I guess. At least in the xfiles universe.
Didn't watch or have a tv for most of 25 years or more so pick 'em up some times for the pc. Never saw 'em back then or only a few.
Okay, look up at the sky and pick ... "from all those many stars" ... the precise direction at which to aim your antenna. Then, grab your trusty Morse Code key and start tappin'.
Of course, you might be long-dead before your signal is ever heard by any "intelligent life," even though the typical life-span on Planet Xerxon is nine hundred fifty orbits. And please be very careful when you aim, because an error of even 0.1 degrees might cause your signal never to be heard by anyone. However, there might be Intelligent Life out there, so it's always a good idea to try to send a radio signal to them.
So far as we know, of course, Xerxon is the only place in this vastness which has ever known "intelligent life." And, there are plenty of detractors who insist that argon-based life forms could obviously not exist anywhere else.
FWIW pointing in the precise direction is so trivial these days that amateur telescope rigs costing under $1000.00 USD have devices that compute the dynamics and all one has to do is type in "Andromeda" or "Uranus" or whatever you like and a motorized telescope centers it in view. SETI employs much more powerful computers to point at millions of specific locations and not because they spent tax dollars to build a Biggy but presently, Seti@Home uses 1.8 Million personal computers. They also monitor many bands but have to be selective from lack of power, both telescopic and computing, so they rule out some bands as too much natural trash events and others as too much human noise. In many ways it is pathetically small, but then so were Viking longboats.
Although you blurred sending and receiving the tongue-in-cheek example made me smile
NOTE: Incidentally if you haven't seen what amateur scopes can do these days, especially with modern CCD converters on the eyepiece so one can see the images on a laptop, you are missing a major "OH WOW!" experience. Highly recommended and one doesn't have to spend thousands of dollars since most areas have Astronomy clubs gald to show off their gear. There are some great websites featuring amazing photos taken with amateur, even DIY, telescope systems but as cool and eye opening as that is doing it yourself has more visceral impact.
Oh yeah and if you'd like to experience how trivial positioning is these days, just launch an app like KStars and set it up with your latitude/longitude..
I can't think of a more pointless waste of resources.
There are far more important things for equipment and staff to be doing.
If I'm mistaken please tell me but I am assuming you mean searching for alien life is a "pointless waste of resources"... is that right? Unlike many here I am not defining alien life as simply "little green men" or "greys" or whatever fiction one subscribes to but rather any lifeform, even bacteria, that was born and lives in an extraterrestrial environment.
Discovering such life is extremely important at the very least discovering if it, too, employs DNA and is carbon-based or not. Discovering just that little bit would have huge implications and give some major insights into some basis for All Life which could not only open our minds to hoiw the Universe works but have powerful effects on understanding our own life processes better. This kind of fundamental understanding of course is the basis for progress which ultimately results in longer, healthier life here on Earth. That, all those things just for starters, is a waste? ... and not only a waste but The Most Wasteful employment of resources you can note or imagine? That sort of "thinking" just boggles my mind, considering how much resources are spent in areas that can never yield any benefit and some that actually set us back or hurt us.
If on the larger scale we are talking about Intelligent aliens, especially those that are as or more advanced than us, just knowing that the path we are on is a viable one, that we as a species can survive the technological spiral and not destroy ourselves seems important to me, even if the answers only benefit my great-grandchildren or homo sapiens in general. Not you?
Tolkien once said that his passion for languages (which eventually led to the creation of Elvish, the Silmarillion and the Lord of the Rings) was sparked by his discovery of Finnish. Before then, the only languages he knew were Indo-European. Finnish, an agglutinative Ural-Altaic language, showed him just how much of what he had thought of as simply "language" was actually just the Indo-European way of doing languages.
Finding alien life will be a similar revelation. It will finally show us how much of the biochemistry we know is simply "how life is and has to be" and how much is the purely Terran way of doing life.
Finding intelligent life is another matter. If it is sufficiently far away, it will be fascinating. If it is closer, it will be profoundly dangerous. Here on earth, there have been repeated contacts between more and less technologically advanced cultures, but only one outcome.
Tolkien once said that his passion for languages (which eventually led to the creation of Elvish, the Silmarillion and the Lord of the Rings) was sparked by his discovery of Finnish. Before then, the only languages he knew were Indo-European. Finnish, an agglutinative Ural-Altaic language, showed him just how much of what he had thought of as simply "language" was actually just the Indo-European way of doing languages.
Finding alien life will be a similar revelation. It will finally show us how much of the biochemistry we know is simply "how life is and has to be" and how much is the purely Terran way of doing life.
Finding intelligent life is another matter. If it is sufficiently far away, it will be fascinating. If it is closer, it will be profoundly dangerous. Here on earth, there have been repeated contacts between more and less technologically advanced cultures, but only one outcome.
I know Stephen Hawking cautions against such encounters with more advanced alien species but I do hold in equal regard the concept that interstellar travel is so difficult, expensive and technologically challenging that it acts as a filter, ruling out those of an aggressively predatory nature. Any civilization employing the vast amount of power, both propulsive and financial (implying cheap energy and an unimaginably high average standard of living) not to mention the co-operation required to build and man crew such an immense project, is not likely to be achieved by conquerors as they will have destroyed themselves long before they reach that level. Most people entertained by Star Trek and Star Wars, etc. vastly underestimate the technology required just for interplanetary travel, but interstellar is on a plane orders of magnitude higher.
Even if we humans manage to somehow divest ourselves of our Hunter-Gatherer instincts and survive spiraling technology, I'm betting even NASA's estimates for putting Man on Mars are way too optimistic. I'm betting most of us here won't live to see it, even including those of us who may be in their teens. As for Interstellar travel, my wildest guesstimate is 500 years at best for anything more than a rare excursion. Regular travel is most likely thousands of years away, if ever. FWIW at one time I had confidence that Wernher Von Braun was accurate when he said he could put a man on Mars and bring him back by 1990... but then I went to college and studied engineering and realized just how much further away Mars is than our Moon and the scaling that requires. Plus, this is to say nothing of Public Opinion that funds any such project, considering it has taken 50 years from Apollo for a private vehicle to even reach the edge of Space.
TLDR I can't assume it is a given that any civilization able to get here must be hostile and bad news, whether planned or incidental.
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