It's an effort astronomers liken to "listening to one hundred million radios, each tuned to a different channel." It's the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and it's no simple task.
That’s why Dr. Jill Tarter, director of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), is asking for help from the rest of the global scientific community in her quest. Tarter and SETI are planning to release astronomical radio telescope data to astronomers and researchers all over the world for analysis, according to a statement released Monday.
Tarter has devoted her career to searching for signs of intelligent life elsewhere in our universe. In 2009, she was awarded a TED Prize for her wish to give the rest of the planet the opportunity to "become active participants in the ultimate search for cosmic company."
She used the benefits of her prize to form "setiQuest," the program that will make data collected by SETI available to those who request it.
SETI records radio signals from space using a series of radio telescopes called the "Allen Telescope Array," named after Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and financier of the project.
In an attempt to narrow their search, SETI astronomers have been focusing on searching for what are called narrowband signals. But opening up the data to other researchers could mean the development of new methods that could analyze broadband signals.
In the past, SETI Institute would process and analyze data in real time and discard the data shortly after. Now, the plan is to provide a day's worth of collected data each week and make the information available for analysis and review for up to six months through its website.
Tuesday on CNN.com, hear Tarter talk about her team's quest searching for intelligence beyond our world.
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Looks like our definition of "life" is strictly limited to vehicle driving, radio playing life forms.
What if the"life" on other planets is limited to bacteria or life forms that are not verbally communicative, or parhaps not "technologically advanced".
To claim that we are all alone in a billion plus stars with billion plus planets is just moronic.
If there is life out there and if it is intelligent...then hopefully they will stay far away from this place for their sakes.
How many years ago was it that we first discovered planets in other solar systems? Not really very long ago. Now we're discovering planets that exhibit Earth-like features – offering the increasing potential for locating carbon-based, oxygen-breathing forms of life elsewhere. Of course, most of these are at such massive distances from our own solar system, some of those places may have already somehow disappeared or whatever (if any) life upon them has disappeared. Conversely, the light reaching us from them may have left long before any life arose there, and now the places are packed with overcrowded cities and alien equivalents of discos.
As another person posted here, if you don't look, you won't ever find out.
So we pickup alien radio transmissions. They live tons of light years away. Chances are by the time we have heard the transmission the culture that made it may no longer exists. We broadcast back. A thousand years from now they get our transmission, assuming they still exist. It would mean almost nothing to pick up one of these transmissions, that is if they even exist in the first place.
Most probably, one of the really important question for the human being today is whether are we alone or not, and, if we are not alone (that is the more probably scenario) can we benefit from each others knowledge.
I think that we shall not be pessimistic. The "meeting the alien" sindrome already happens by the help of Internet:
I am sitting in Hungary, drinking French wine, listening to music broadcasted from Mongolia (really nice Mongolian art) and comment to an US portal. OK, this is all within the Globe, but the technical development perhaps never stops within our life – hopefully.
So, all efforts in this direction is welcome !!
what if we find intelligent life but they are ignorant about our intelligence but interested in how we taste?
God said that he has sheep in other flocks. There are billions upon billions of solar systems out there. Who's to say that one of those isn't at the perfect distance, like the Earth?
we'll find microbial or larger life forms in our lifetime (well at least my lifetime) under the ice, in the oceans of Europa (orbiting Jupiter). No doubt. Its got, liquid water, tons of geo-thermal energy from tidal stretching, and billions of years of percolating.. why not life? lets go there now, drill down through the ice and launch the submersible into that Europan ocean. cant wait.
It is exciting to see that the searching for other intelligent life is picking up, yet frightening at the same time.
Not frightening because of the discovery itself, but what we are to do with it. Humans in nature are violent and judgemental based on visual appearance and our first impulse is to be aggressive in situations we are not familiar with, its how we evolved and survived in this world. This is not true for the entirety of our population as many are ready and already embracing this idea, but only for the majority i would think its safe to say. What if these intelligent beings features look similiar to that of a palmetto bug or the "predator"? Our first impulse would be to be frightened by them, which may cause us to react hastily in the wrong way. Like everyone says, first impressions are everything. Another great example is a recent movie "disctrict 9". We can't even embrace ourselves and unite human-kind, let alone be ready to discover and meet forein intelligence for the majority of our population.
I hate to think of these negative facts about discovering foreign intelligence but its the sad truth about us as a species. Since i can remember ive always looked up, and always seaked research that may lead to hints and theories of other intelligence and possibly answers to our endless questions of existance, and i can't wait until that day comes and hopefully in my lifetime. I just hope that when the time comes, we will put our first impulses aside and and not act hastily. Hopefully when that time comes, we will unite as a species instead of as countries and divisions.
In fact SETI may be dangerous activity: read "Is seti dangerous?"
We can download hostile AI
Even if there happened to be extraterrestrial life with enough intelligence to discover the means of space travel or even discover detectable signals that are able to propagate away from their planet, what's to say that their planet contains the necessary elements in order to produce the ability to make said objects?
Or maybe their civilizations have come and gone a million times over... Like someone posted earlier: they could be in an infantile stage of evolution, or extremely beyond us. Would definitely be amazing to know though...
Just so many questions... Amazing what ideas curiosity breeds... I'm all for researching, just don't take away from things that need to fixed on this planet first...
I am not an astronomer.
I am not a mathematician.
I am simply a sophomore philosophy major at a top ranked Liberal Arts school.
I am a learned student of logic.
Recently, I came up with a proof. The proof makes two assumptions, which I do not have the credentials or knowledge to prove true. The first assumption is that there are a finite number of elements in the universe, assuming that elements of too complex atomic structure would be too unstable to hold together. The second assumption is that the Universe is infinite. This is something which is still being argued in the scientific community, by experts such as Michio Kaku. Here is the proof:
1.) There exists a finite number of elements which combine to form any matter in the Universe
2.) The Universe is infinite
3.) Since there are a finite number of elements, then there are also a finite number of ways in which they can combine to form complex structures.
4.) Eventually, the combination of events which took place here on Earth with certain forms of matter combining with others in certain orders would have to be repeated somewhere, sometime.
5.) Since the Universe is infinite, the eventual repetitions of events will also be infinite, creating an infinite number of intelligent worlds SOMEWHERE in the Universe.
C: Intelligent life must exist at some other place in the Universe.
I'm not a scientist, and I got a C in algebra in High School. This may not be air tight, but I have always wanted to put it to the test.
I`m not an earth scientist but accepting the implied infinity of space is it possible that we could recognise life even if it were to exist? Adding on `intelligent` – a concept with relevence only to things endogerous to our planet – makes the problem worse. While if we leave our own self absorption – anthropohegemony – then any other type of sensible species would might well identifiy this planet as damned dangerous and race for cover; might this not explain the BIG BANG?. But never mind; falin` palin will give you the answer!
Seti's failure over the years shows the paradym is faulty. It was a good try, but over time it becomes more and more understood that radio signals are a transient event in a civilizations travail through time. We beam tighter and tighter signals, and less and less high power, (signals that can be intercepted), long range. The intercept if it happens, should be broad band, not narrow band limited to concepts of our thoughts on what an alien might send. It would be like the drunk looking for his keys under the light. It ain't gonna happen that way. In fact LIGO would be the proper instrument as an intellegent signal in gravitic modulation would be a much better transmission medium as it would be really spectacular to find a modulation in a signal that we could see and understand to be artificial, but have no clue as to how it would be achieved. Paublus
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."
We have Drake's Equation to give us a formula for determining the possibility of intellligent life that is able to communicate with us. What is not factored in is the endless quest/thirst for knowledge that we possess as human beings. When problems seem too difficult to fix here on earth, why not look and listen to the skies to find that proof to give people the wake-up call that they need to pull together as one? We need to use the resources that are available to us, whether they are radio waves, smoke signals, or whatever.....but we do not need to wave the white flag and give up. Here's to Paul Allen and his funding of the Array and to the researchers analyzing the data. Here's to the possibilities everywhere!