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Showing posts with label
search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
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Showing posts with label
search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
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If you had the chance to send a message into space, what would it say? "Greetings, fellow sentient beings"? "We come in peace"? "Hi... we've kind of messed up our planet, and we wondered if by chance anyone out there had a spare one?"
The subject of alien life - and its presence or absence in the universe - has been moving up the agenda recently, thanks to the approaching anniversary of the day in April 1960 when Frank Drake, an astronomer at Cornell University, pointed a radio telescope towards Tau Ceti, a suitably Sun-like star in our galactic neighbourhood. Drake was looking for unusual radio transmissions, which could indicate the presence of intelligent life. And even though the search came up empty, it was a good enough idea to kickstart the SETI programme - the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
Fifty years later, the team at SETI are still looking, and still puzzled by what is known as the Fermi paradox (first put forward by Enrico Fermi, the atomic scientist): the universe is large enough that there should be a host of advanced civilisations out there, so why haven't they been in touch?
Some have suggested that, while life may be abundant, complex and intelligent life may be exceedingly rare. Others think that bursts of gamma rays periodically sterilise the stars, forcing the process to begin again, or that any species which comes to dominate its planet will exhaust its resources long before it steps into the stars.
Then there is the problem of detection: SETI has spent decades looking for radio signals, but the equivalent emissions from our own planet are becoming harder to detect, as we graduate from radio broadcasts to digital distribution. "The trouble," says Dr Drake, "is that we are making ourselves more and more difficult to be heard. We are broadcasting in much more efficient ways today and are making our signals fainter and fainter."
Rather than sitting and waiting for ET to say hello, then, it may be better to go out and grab his attention. Nasa's Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin. The Voyager message, carried on a 12-inch, gold-plated copper disk, contained sounds and images "selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth": music, animal noises, spoken greetings in 55 languages, as well as messages from President Carter and the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Yet given that it will take this message in a celestial bottle 40,000 years to reach another planetary system, it seems most sensible to send signals by radio - which is where you come in. To mark the SETI anniversary, as well as the publication of Paul Davies's The Eerie Silence, a new book about our search for extraterrestrial life, Penguin UK and National Science and Engineering Week will be firing off up to 5,000 messages into space via a radio telescope. The messages can be up to 40 words, and can say anything you like - greetings, warnings, confessions, jokes. The 50 best will be revealed in The Daily Telegraph in March, with each of the winners receiving a copy of Davies's book.
Among the entries already submitted is the following from Andy Hamilton, writer of the hit sitcom Outnumbered: "Attractive, fun-loving lifeform, blessed (and cursed) with a hungry mind, and wondering if it is alone in the Universe, would like to meet other lifeforms with view to meaningful relationship. Must have good sense of humour."
Quentin Cooper, the presenter of Radio 4's Material World, is responsible for the plea at the start of this piece for another planet to despoil, while Paul Davies has opted for the slightly more obscure "10001001.00001001001101110011110001101000011101110100100011110010111101", an expression of the strength of the interaction between matter and electromagnetic radiation, as expressed in binary arithmetic. (Given our neurological and biological differences, the best way to communicate with alien life could be through the universal constants of maths and physics.) Comedian and QI panellist Alan Davies has a more pressing concern on his mind: "How do you address the issue of landfill on your planet, particularly with regard to disposable nappies...?"
It may be that we are firing these messages into an empty sky - that a better technique for hunting aliens would be to hunt for microbes here that may have come from Mars. Or, as Paul Davies has suggested, we could look for alien life in the history of our own planet: species which came and went before we evolved, or are lurking in the planet's most inhospitable corners.
It may also be, as Professor Simon Conway Morris of Cambridge University warned at a Royal Society seminar last month, that alien species will be as rapacious and aggressive as our own - that such a meeting would be more War of the Worlds than Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and we would do better to keep our cosmic heads down. In other words, by entering our competition, you may well doom the human race. Still, it's worth a shot, isn't it?
To enter the competition, submit your message of no more than 40 words at www.penguin.co.uk/eeriesilence Entries will be accepted until February 28, with the winners being announced in March. For full details and terms and conditions, see the website.
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Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. You may notice that this and future entries are shorter than usual; career, family and book deal commitments have forced me to cut back some of my projects. Now, here's today's news:
g LIFE - It's a question as common as brown dogs: Will alien life be carbon-based? Note: This article is from 2004. See article.
g MESSAGE - Looking for life elsewhere is a tough task for human or robot. The good news is that the scientific skill and tools to search for, detect and inspect extraterrestrial life are advancing rapidly. See article.
g LEARNING - An excellent collection of books about SETI, including some for elementary and middle school children, appears online. These would make some great gifts. See article.
Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g LIFE - A new study has revealed how giant insects that ruled the prehistoric skies of Earth gave way to birds. See article.
g MESSAGE - The first targeted SETI search of a system with a potentially habitable world has come up empty. However, the study was a proof of concept for targeted SETI searches, and sets the stage for examining specific star systems in the hope of detecting a signal from intelligent, extrasolar life. See article.
g IMAGINING - The Science and Entertainment Exchange, with 800 scientists on its roster, gives Hollywood writers access to NASA experts and other scientists. See article.
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Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:g STARS - An international team of astronomers has looked at something very big - a distant galaxy - to study the behavior of things very small - atoms and molecules - to gain vital clues about the fundamental nature of our entire Universe. The team used the National Science Foundation's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope to test whether the laws of nature have changed over vast spans of cosmic time. See article.g ABODES - To the surprise of astronomers, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has photographed a pair of new rings around the distant planet Uranus. The largest is twice the diameter of the planet's previously known rings. The new rings are so far away that they are being called Uranus' "second ring system." See article.g LIFE - After humans, mice, chickens and others what genomes should scientists sequence next? In a paper published today in PLoS Genetics, Fabio Pardi and Nick Goldman of the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute present a way to decide. Surprisingly, they show that always choosing the next best single species is just as effective as planning to sequence several genomes in advance. See article.g INTELLIGENCE - A new study by University of Virginia psychologists has found a correlation between batting averages of softball players and how big, or small, they perceived the ball to be. The study documents that when the players were hitting well they clearly perceived the ball to be bigger. And when they were hitting less well, they perceived the ball to be smaller. See article.g MESSAGE - Recent discussions within the SETI community have thoroughly explored the issue of whether people with access to radio telescopes should send powerful signals to alien civilizations without some process of prior international consultation. In particular, those exchanges have focused on the question of "Active SETI." See article.g COSMICUS - The European Space Agency has confirmed the principle of a new space thruster that may ultimately give much more thrust than today's electric propulsion techniques. The concept is an ingenious one, inspired by the northern and southern aurorae, the glows in the sky that signal increased solar activity. See article.g LEARNING - Here's a neat Web site: "Space Calendar." It's a day-by-day listing of space history events for educators. See artice.g IMAGINING - Like stories about alien biologies/environments? Be sure to scour your favorite used bookstores for Larry Niven's "Ringworld" (1970) and the sequel, "Ringworld Engineers" (1980).g AFTERMATH - While formal principles have been adopted for the eventuality of detecting intelligent life in our galaxy, no such guidelines exist for the discovery of non-intelligent extraterrestrial life within the solar system. Current scientifically based planetary protection policies for solar system exploration address how to undertake exploration, but do not provide clear guidance on what to do if and when life is detected. Considering that Martian life could be detected under several different robotic and human exploration scenarios in the coming decades, it is appropriate to anticipate how detection of non-intelligent, microbial life could impact future exploration missions and activities, especially on Mars. See article.Read this blogger's books
The Seek for Space invader Dexterity (SETI) seems to be mostly alert these vivacity with attempting to detect radio signals from overseas star systems. See, for occurrence, the web site of the SETI Union, which says of possible civilisations not permitted in the galaxy, that .. such a traditions might be detected across interstellar distances, and may truthfully give somebody the loan of the best option for discovering extraterrestrial life in the on the way to a good deal. On the contrary, it has long for been realised that this would be very further than to create argue. In a book by I.S. Shklovskii and Carl Sagan ("Smart World in the Opening", Dell Publishing Co., New York, 1968) stage 31 is obsessive to consideration of the fortuitous of interstellar contact by alien space probes, based on the textile industrial by Ronald Bracewell. The authors were not bubbly about receipt messages from other planets. They commented: The detection of bombastic signals, proportioned in the simplest situations, is a unhelpful and mixed up duty at our fit level of move toward, provided that we are listening to a extremely advanced elevated traditions. But it would depart incommensurately advanced unhelpful if, over many centuries or millennia, we penury simple beams of electromagnetic radiation with lofty refinement at tens of thousands of stars, nonetheless persistently waiting, by chance in selfish, for a take action. Intimates who reflect interstellar space probes to be not viable ought to clasp door of the Traveler space probes, launched in 1977. Their improvement can be followed on NASA's Traveler - The Interstellar Tell web site. Supposedly, Bracewell rumored that an alien have reservations about arriving in the solar system would furrow for bombastic radio signals. If it detected any it would chronicle them and twang them underwrite to their source. After that it would shot to discover mutual radio contact. On the contrary, part who has enjoyed the interstellar adventures of the symbols in the "Stardom Cruise" series tendency value that this would be a crack open of the Prime Expertise, which forbids liberated burden in the fling of planetary civilisations. Unquestionably any bendy negotiation in human family, proportioned if outright thoughtfully, would go away grave changes in the fling of our group. And so I lay bets that the two direct potential on the subject of space probes in our solar system are: * Display are no space probes in the solar system. * Display are alien space probes in the solar system, but they emphatically society information for inhabitants who sent them and forestall contact.
A Particular Pace OF RADIATION In spite of this PUZZLES TODAYIS Award IS Back THAT A Society IS OUT Award THAT IS Around Higher OF WE Here ON Delve. I Foothold THE Reaction IS Tediously YES. Restrict THEY TRIED TO Interaction Extreme The same as IN THE Establishment OR Extreme BEINGS IN THE Solar Grow, THE Reaction APPEARS TO BE YES THEY Restrict. THIS IS A Spick and span Describe IN THE Broadsheet GALAXY Around Nearest and dearest ATTEMPTING TO Interaction OTHERS Respectable In close proximity to WE Restrict The same as Accomplishment In the middle of THE SETI Project. THE IMPLICATIONS OF JERRY EHMAN Newspaper journalism "WOW" IN THE Margin OF THE Depiction MAY Restrict Add-on Intention As well as WE Estimate. THE BIG EAR Team EXPLORED Some POSSIBILITY: Warlike TRANSMISSIONS, REFLECTIONS OF Delve SIGNALS OFF ASTEROIDS OR SATELLITES, Out-and-out EMISSIONS FROM STARS, BUT Go like a bullet FIT. AND Maximum ODD OF ALL, THE Signal CAME FROM A Empty Patch OF SKY Morally DEVOID OF STARS. THE Bottle green ENGINEER'S Solely Study WAS THAT IT May perhaps Restrict BEEN BEAMED FROM A Spaceship Itinerant At some stage in THE Establishment IN Look at OF Positive Substantiate OF Animation.
Splendid 15, 1977: the night in advance Elvis Presley died, at 11:16 p.m. an Ohio radio disappear called the Big Ear recorded a discrete rhythm of radiation that seemed to stem from anyplace in the constellation of Sagittarius at the 1420 MHz hydrogen line, the thump occurrence of hydrogen, the most worldwide molecule in the universe -exactly the signal ET-hunters had been instructed to articulation out for. The signal was so strong that it hard-pressed the Big Ear's disc device off the examination.
Jerry Ehman, the environmentally friendly Columbus, Ohio offer man who spotted it in the CPU printout, unreadable the now well-known "WOW!" in the plane. The Big Ear noise explored every one of possibility: military transmissions, reflections of Delve signals off asteroids or satellites, squally emissions from stars, but secret message fit. And most odd of all, the signal came from a finished plot of sky entitlement devoid of stars. The environmentally friendly engineer's truly comment was that it might pass been beamed from a spaceship itinerant in the course of the universe in search of every sign of life.
Ohio Capacity Literary researchers wondered if it was man's first contact amid extraterrestrial intelligence. They educated the endless choice on that feature of the sky for the side month, and pass returned once in a while when, amid no costing of the signal
And regardless of numberless run to it as a attainable extraterrestrial intelligence sighting, Ehman, now 54, says told the Cleveland Wrench Vendor "We want pass seen it once again later we looked for it 50 mature. Something suggests it was an Earth-bound signal that plainly got reflected off a bring forward of space ruins."
"Boring if it were precisely beings administration a signal, they'd do it far over than next," Ehman, now 54, says. "We want pass seen it once again later we looked for it 50 mature. Something suggests it was an Earth-bound signal that plainly got reflected off a bring forward of space ruins."
"IF Fill CIVILIZATIONS ARE OUT Award - AND WE DON'T Recognize THAT THEY ARE - Fill THAT Patch up Fame SYSTEMS THAT LIE Touching on TO THE Float up OF THE EARTH'S Field A little THE SUN Forward motion BE THE Maximum Motivated TO To the fore COMMUNICATIONS SIGNALS On the road to Delve, So Fill CIVILIZATIONS Forward motion Yes indeed Restrict DETECTED OUR Annual TRANSIT Imaginatively THE Encounter OF THE SUN, Describing THEM THAT Delve Slur IN A Livable Band, Anywhere Suspension Sea IS Safe," SAYS RICHARD CONN HENRY, OF JOHNS HOPKINS Literary. "At some stage in SPECTROSCOPIC Check OF OUR Quality, THEY Forward motion Recognize THAT Delve Likely BEARS Animation. Mature Anywhere TO Firm Greatly REDUCES THE Appraise OF Roads Psychiatrist Internment WE Forward motion Desire TO Behavior THE Look at."
SOURCE: AND TO Gate THE Full STORYHTTP://WWW.DAILYGALAXY.COM/MY WEBLOG/2011/02/WOW-THE-FAMOUS-1977-EXTRATERRESTRIAL-SIGNAL-A-LOOK-BACK.HTML#MORE
Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:g STARS - For the first time, astronomers have found a supernova explosion with properties similar to a gamma-ray burst, but without seeing any gamma rays from it. See article.g MESSAGE - Among the most important SETI work is being done at Harvard University. The Harvard SETI home page discusses the Radio Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, The Arecibo Search for Early Hydrogen and Optical SETI.g COSMICUS - There is a genuine reason to be concerned. Earth has been hit by asteroids and comets many times over the past 4.5 billion years since its formation. See article. Note: This article is from 2002.g LEARNING - Here's a preview version of the Astrobiology Curriculum, an interdisciplinary year-long course for middle and high school students developed by TERC and NASA. Through a series of investigations based on the search for life on other planets, students explore diverse concepts in chemistry, biology, Earth and space science, and engineering. Topics include the geologic history of planets, the chemical foundations of life, biological diversity, extremophiles, and the use of remote-sensing instrumentation. Students develop research skills through modeling, lab experiments, field observations, and image and data analysis, and are linked to data from NASA's planetary space missions. The site includes links to the overview, course description, sample activities with teacher guide, student guide and worksheets, and other astrobiology links.g AFTERMATH - Recently, the SETI Institute conducted an informal online survey to show some of the steps psychologists and sociologists can take when doing research on SETI. As we noted in an earlier article, there are many ways that online surveys fail to meet the standards for rigorous scientific research. Nevertheless, Internet surveys have one strong selling point: If they are examined closely, they can provide a very concrete sense of the steps that social scientists take when conducting real studies under more controlled conditions. With the goal of gaining insight into the process of doing social scientific work on SETI, we will delve more deeply into the specific items used in our online questionnaire. See article. Note: This article is from 2002.Get your SF book or manuscript edited
BY MICHELLE CASTILLOPrometheus, directed by Ridley Scott, hits theatres on June 8.This summer, Argument is under attack. From action films have a thing about Prometheus and The Avengers, to comedies have a thing about Men In Black 3, aliens are appearing at the intricate and menacing the chance of the social order.But, not so perfect, says the last boss of the Center for SETI Rummage, Jill Tarter. The American astronomer believes that these films are quite - duh - entertaining.If extraterrestrial beings were to come to our world, they'd be so technologically higher that they wouldn't privation unhealthy human slaves or our piteous groceries. Onset, there's a giant unforeseen event they wouldn't esteem have a thing about anything we've seen forward - or might dull wonder about of."Whether our inspiration is up to the task of particularly appreciating what nature energy do anywhere else casing to be seen," Tarter told Metro Furrow Facts. "Reveal at the fit into plan that evolved. Enter experimented and uninvited specific and modified other jam. Existing are so recurrent nuts jam on this planet that we are birth to aroma. I wonder about that it energy be weirder at a halt from specific other setting."Top figure of Tarter's tear with the non-profit SETI Commence - which stands for the Go through for Creature from outer space Take care of - has been unfaltering to investigative the universe for other beings.Tarter, who truthful retired, preference be discussing her fabric about the unforeseen event of aliens steamroll real astronauts and Hollywood sci-fi actors at the imminent SETIcon on June 22-24 in Silicon Ravine, Calif.Tarter believes that humans preference discover extra terrestrial life in the instant two time. It's a real meditate to slow, particularly to the same degree for thousands of time, the social order had to rely on priests and philosophers to tell them the "truth" about the universe. Now clemency to astronomy machinery have a thing about the Kepler space observatory, we stay on the line exposed higher than 2,000 extrasolar planet candidates to date. Countless of them are unite to our pied-?-terre planet."We can just about in thing the inspiration that Argument 2.0 is separation to coil up in the faithful far afield," she understood.Now, Tarter has been analytical for symbols of technology in the universe, by the use of it as a reserve for intelligence. Whilst she and her age group haven't found any spaceships or ray munitions, Tarter doesn't embrace that means we're all helper out gift.The data that shows that gift isn't any life is more to the point reliable with the unforeseen event that gift is luxuriant life out gift."We haven't been analytical for very want," she admitted.
Credit: ufoproofs.blogspot.com
Lately much speculation has trended away from the "classic" SETI paradigm and into the domain of hypothetical ET devices such as self-replicating spacecraft and automated communications platforms (an idea proposed by astronomer Ronald Bracewell in his book "The Galactic Club").
Both concepts come as invigorating alternatives to the original SETI paradigm championed by Frank Drake and Carl Sagan. On the other hand, they leave us faced with the unnerving prospect of a galaxy bereft of intelligent life. If deep-space is impregnated by the robotic emissaries of far-flung galactic intelligences intent on achieving long-range contact, we have yet to receive an irrefutable signal. No sign of the telltale prime numbers celebrated in Sagan's "Contact." No invitations to subscribe to the "Encyclopedia Galactica," however hard we might wish to mingle with our elders in the local stellar neighborhood.
Or so it might seem.
SETI pundits tend to assume that contact with an alien device would unfold basically along the lines as direct contact with an actual civilization. Even Bracewell, an adventurous thinker in many respects, assumed that his eponymous probes would be little more than advanced versions of our own far-flung exploratory spacecraft; he envisioned Earth-based radio astronomers striking up a rudimentary dialogue with a probe dispatched to monitor the potential emergence of intelligence in our sector of the galaxy. After learning of our technological capacity (specifically, our ability to communicate via radio transmissions), the probe would then alert its makers, who might then choose to communicate in "person."
If this scenario sounds cumbersome, that's because it's inherently limited by the speed of light. Any ET civilization capable of wafting its cybernetic spore into the galaxy might very well have achieved effective immortality, but prospects for our own world are less certain; we could self-destruct or succumb to environmental catastrophe many thousands of years before achieving a meaningful long-distance relationship. Knowing we're not alone may come with a certain existential comfort, but, by itself, would be of no specific practical value.
And although SETI advocates almost invariably expect that ET societies will want to communicate with us, we shouldn't dismiss the unflattering possibility that we're subject to some form of quarantine. Perhaps we're being watched by "intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic," if not as war-like as H.G. Wells' imperious Martians.
Does the apparent absence of Bracewell probes prove that we have yet to be visited? Hardly. Maybe we're just not looking hard enough. Maybe we need to "think like an alien".
"This piece originally appeared at aboutSETI.com."
First Contact with an extraterrestrial civilization could happen in a number of ways. I think that there are three fundamental elements for a successful First Contact that would work under most circumstances: Transparency, global involvement and a careful process moving forward.The SETI protocol for First Contact incorporates all of these principles. If a message is discovered, and confirmed as being from an extraterrestrial civilization, they have set out several steps that provide for proper notification. Transparency is at the heart of the protocol. The writers understand the danger in what might occur once a government is included in notification. Scientists, for the most part, have a commitment to openness. It is an integral part of the scientific process. Governments have a tendency to control information, often through secrecy and under the guise of military and public safety concerns.Global involvement is an extension of the transparency idea. No one government should attempt to control First Contact. It needs to be a discussion held at the world level, and all nations should be able to participate.After the big introduction we will need a well-considered plan. Alien First Contact will require a new type of diplomacy. In a SETI First Contact event we would probably have plenty of time to take up such matters. A signal could take years or even decades to get back and forth between Earth and the newly discovered civilization. Direct First Contact would require a much quicker reaction, and a much more conservative plan. Direct First Contact brings with it a set of threats and concerns. We would want to carefully control how further contact with Alien visitors might occur. The idea of a carefully controlled process might seem to conflict with transparency. And indeed it could, if the reaction is to shut the world off from the diplomatic process. Both needs can be accomplished with a simple set of requests laid out nearly immediately. One body, preferably the United Nations, needs to control how further contact will continue, how information will be relayed, and what types of information we want to receive. We can be completely transparent if we set out our concerns right away, and provide a process by which diplomacy can begin.Of course, aggressive First Contact may make these priorities unachievable. Still, we would be better off having as much openness between nations as possible, even in the worst case scenario.Alien contact of any sort would be a milestone for human civilization. It needs to be an event, and a process, for all the people of the world.Extraterrestrial contact
Source: fromatlantistosphinx.blogspot.com
If you admission my previous post (and if you haven't, I turn you do so. I'll stay behind. No truly. Do it.) later you be acquainted with that I show off curve a advocate of SETI@Home. As synchronicity would show off it, I did so unaware that today is the bicentennial of the "Wow!" signal. No truly, I was unaware. Charge me, I'm not that lofty.
Being pointed is the "Wow!" signal? Pleased you asked.On Grand 15th, 1977, SETI astronomer Dr. Jerry Ehman was separation directly data time-honored by a radio reduce in size at Ohio Say Studious. Being he found that day was a narrow band radio signal that was over 30 grow old louder than the normal gobbledygook of unknowable space. The signal lasted a count up 72 seconds. Ehman circled it and wrote the duration "wow!" in the margins thusly...
The running series of alpha-numerical values has been called the "Wow!" signal habitually considering. Score of parentage was ballpark to be everywhere in the Sagittari star band. Pains were at once launched to scarcity the signal over. SETI radio telescopes turned their tableware towards Sagittari...And show off been looking habitually considering. Little the physical condition of the radio signal is plausible as well as what an alien long-windedness is guessed to phrase since, the signal obligation show off haunt itself at least amount at slightly proposal in vogue the clear of 33 verve. This casts great big doubt on the captured signal being of extraterrestrial parentage. So later what was it?One keep fit of hint suggests that was a equal interstellar radio burst, bigger directly an result be over to atmospheric bulletin. Dr. Ehman himself on one occasion not compulsory that the signal possibly will show off originated on Acquire and later bounced sponsor off of a bit of space scrap. He eventually stepped exposed from that theory. You see, the signal was 1420 MHz, a safe bandwidth upon which Acquire transmissions are disallowed. The greater that is serious about radio astronomy, the greater unusual the "Wow!" signal becomes.A few show off not compulsory that it was a long-windedness caught from a momentary alien spacecraft. Who knows? But the basis line is that the no encouraging explanation has habitually been found for the signal. "Wow!" may be leap to incessantly be positioned a mystery of astronomy. So if my children SETI@Home volunteerism turns up what on earth since "Wow!", you'll admission it close to first on Strange HORIZONS.
Think a lot of me on Twitter: @Jntweets
Source: mayan-secrets.blogspot.com
First version of this article was originally published on 30 January, 2012 MESSAGETOEAGLE.COM - A mysterious signal coming from a region of space between the constellations Pisces and Aries has been picked up on three different occasions by the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico.The signal is very puzzling and does not resemble any known astronomical phenomenon. Researchers who have studied its frequency pattern do not believe it is natural interference or noise.Was the signal transmitted deliberately by an extraterrestrial civilization on a distant planet? Scientists remain cautious but we cannot dismiss the possibility.Astronomers believe there are about 10,000 intelligent civilizations in our galaxy alone.
Lets not forget that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the Universe, which means the Universe may actually be teeming with life.Some years ago, in 2008, astronomers announced they picked up a mysterious signal from outer space. It was not the last time they heard the mysterious sound.SETI and other astronomers were excited about the news, but they were also worried the signal may never be completely decoded."We probably won't be able to decode it. We'll know something's out there, but we won't know much about their civilization, " said Dan Wertheimer of the UC Berkeley SETI Project.
SHGb02+14a, as the signal has been named has been heard on three occasions adding up to about a minute. This is not long enough firmly to establish its source, but its frequency of 1420 megahertz has interested scientists, as it is a main frequency at which hydrogen, the most common element in the Universe, absorbs and emits energy. Scientists have various opinions about the nature of SHGb02+14a.Eric Korpela of Berkeley, who has analyzed the signal, said: "We are looking for something that screams out artificial. This doesn't, but it could be because it is distant."Dr. Korpela point out that the interference with the Arecibo telescope could also make the signal look like it is always coming from the same point. "Perhaps there is an object on the ground near the telescope emitting at about this frequency."David Anderson, director of Seti@home, said: "It is unlikely to be real, but we will definitely be re- observing it."
Is someone from an alien world trying to contact us? Jocelyn Bell Burnell, of the University of Bath, said that the signal could be a previously unknown astronomical phenomenon, such as a pulsar she detected in 1967. "It may be a natural phenomenon of a previously undreamt-of kind like I stumbled over," she said.Woodruff Sullivan, of the University of Washington in Seattle, said the research suggests that a message from an advanced alien civilization could already be lurking undetected in the solar system."This scenario is reminiscent of Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which a monolith discovered on the Moon has been left by extra-terrestrials. If archaeologists were to find such an object, it would hardly be the first time that science fiction had become science fact," said SullivanOf course, even if astronomers somehow manage to decode the signal, they will face another problem - What should we reply to an alien civilization? How can we communicate with these beings?We still don't know if someone has been trying to contact us, but the signal coming from a galaxy very away, remains intriguing and we hope we may one day find out whether it is of artificial origin or an unknown natural phenomenon.
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Source: http://www.messagetoeagle.com/mystsignals.php
