In the seemingly futile hunt for alien intelligences somewhere in our vicinity (aka the SETI programme), perhaps the most famous moment was the brief burst of radio signal activity received on the 15th of August 1977, by Ohio State University's Big Ear radio telescope in the United States.
The astronomer Jerry R. Ehman discovered the signal anomaly when he was reviewing the data a few days later, and was so surprised when he saw the computer print outs, that he circled the reading on the paper and then scribbled the comment 'Wow!' next to it. This then became the short hand name for the event.
The entire signal sequence lasted for the full 72-second window during which Big Ear was able to observe it, but has not been detected again since, despite several attempts to find it .... which is perhaps no surprise. Recently scientists have suggested that if the average intelligent planetary civilisation lasts around 100,000 years (which sounds ambitious for ours), then even if we did receive a signal that we recognised as alien intelligence, and were then able to decode it, then by the time we sent the reply and it got back to the senders, their civilisation would be long gone.
Its a sad fact that even if our galaxy was fairly well seeded with intelligent life, the chances of it being both near enough to receive our signals (which are comparatively weak and so die out quite near to our system - in galactic terms), and concurrent with our civilisation, are very nearly zero. In 2018, the University of California, Santa Cruz, studied the issue, and concluded that if any civilisation that lasted less than 100,000 years broadcast its location, the odds of us detecting it whilst that civilisation was still in existence are virtually nil (never mind it still be alive by the time we broadcast back and the target system received that reply).
We have have been broadcasting for just over 80 years, and are already phasing out the analogue AM and FM systems with digital systems, which although easier for others to detect, are very much like galactic background noise unless you have the encoding system .... so in reality we will become invisible to others after a mere 80 years of broadcasting our presence.
The nearest we are likely to ever get to another civilisation, is if we actually crack inter-solar travel, and stumble across the wreckage of a dead civilisation. However in the face of the huge distances between us and even the nearest stars (and we have heard nothing from them), we are probably never going to leave our solar system.
In fact, with the laws of physics being what they are, then most probably, no civilisation ever leaves its own solar system (except possibly if another sun is within a light year of their own), and so no one ever sees an extraterrestrial visitor .... even if they were concurrent with each other (which is highly unlikely).
So while 'The truth' maybe 'out there', extraterrestrials are most certainly not .... or at least not near enough to visit us.
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| WOW Indeed .... If You Know What Your Looking At! |
The astronomer Jerry R. Ehman discovered the signal anomaly when he was reviewing the data a few days later, and was so surprised when he saw the computer print outs, that he circled the reading on the paper and then scribbled the comment 'Wow!' next to it. This then became the short hand name for the event.
The entire signal sequence lasted for the full 72-second window during which Big Ear was able to observe it, but has not been detected again since, despite several attempts to find it .... which is perhaps no surprise. Recently scientists have suggested that if the average intelligent planetary civilisation lasts around 100,000 years (which sounds ambitious for ours), then even if we did receive a signal that we recognised as alien intelligence, and were then able to decode it, then by the time we sent the reply and it got back to the senders, their civilisation would be long gone.
Its a sad fact that even if our galaxy was fairly well seeded with intelligent life, the chances of it being both near enough to receive our signals (which are comparatively weak and so die out quite near to our system - in galactic terms), and concurrent with our civilisation, are very nearly zero. In 2018, the University of California, Santa Cruz, studied the issue, and concluded that if any civilisation that lasted less than 100,000 years broadcast its location, the odds of us detecting it whilst that civilisation was still in existence are virtually nil (never mind it still be alive by the time we broadcast back and the target system received that reply).
We have have been broadcasting for just over 80 years, and are already phasing out the analogue AM and FM systems with digital systems, which although easier for others to detect, are very much like galactic background noise unless you have the encoding system .... so in reality we will become invisible to others after a mere 80 years of broadcasting our presence.
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| UFO's Are Not Extraterrestrials .... Really They Are Not. |
The nearest we are likely to ever get to another civilisation, is if we actually crack inter-solar travel, and stumble across the wreckage of a dead civilisation. However in the face of the huge distances between us and even the nearest stars (and we have heard nothing from them), we are probably never going to leave our solar system.
In fact, with the laws of physics being what they are, then most probably, no civilisation ever leaves its own solar system (except possibly if another sun is within a light year of their own), and so no one ever sees an extraterrestrial visitor .... even if they were concurrent with each other (which is highly unlikely).
So while 'The truth' maybe 'out there', extraterrestrials are most certainly not .... or at least not near enough to visit us.
That's quite right, UFOs certainly aren't Extraterrestrials; the so called Fermi Paradox is nothing of the sort, just a few wildly optimistic assumptions about the chances of life's ability to attain intelligence, technology and the ability to communicate with the rest of the Universe.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there is a good chance of life appearing on other worlds, however in order to develop to even our modest level of technology with a hope of a chance of reaching out, it has to :
i) acquire a consciousness and an intelligence which goes beyond mere survival (unlike most of life on Earth)
ii) have physical attributes for tool making (unlike dolphins)
iii) be lucky enough to have a reserve of energy in easy reach to fuel industrialisation (like our fossil fuels)
...and even then as you point out, probably nothing is enough for life to leave its own solar system, nor does anything afford it enough time to make contact with the nearest occurrence of life in another solar system.
Dinosaurs are a good example of the above; they lasted for 150 Million years, wa-ay longer than our 200,000 years so far, but lacked the ability and the desire to make contact with the Vulcans whose signals were flooding the Earth at the time. The only thing they had was luck and longevity and that wasn't nearly enough. Of course even if they could have responded, the Vulcans were already long gone and wouldn't have been there to have been logically satisfied.
Curious Fact : T-Rex was closer to us in years than it was to the Stegosaurus.
I suspect that the coincidence required for two intelligent species to be at the same level of development to be able to communicate, being around at exactly the same time and close enough for rational communication is actually the reason that we and no other intelligent species will ever have extraterrestrial contact.
DeleteWe could always broadcast to the future by blasting out messages that some other race might pick up in a million years or so ... we would be eventually known across the galaxy.