Denying Ignorance About SETI: It's Not Just About Radio Anymore

Not sure how I missed this, but very nicely done.

SETI, especially with the inevitable discovery of Earth-type, and Earth-like, planets, is going to become very important, IMHO.

...and with people, like yourself Jade, who can break it down into language any layman, like myself, can understand, it'll stand a much better chance of public, and private, funding.

Again, nicely done.

a reply to: JadeStar

I'm not a fan of yours...but great work here. I only red the first post of the thread, and it sounds interesting and educational.

Will have to wait to get home to focus more on the info.

originally posted by: MarioOnTheFly
a reply to: JadeStar

I'm not a fan of yours...but great work here. I only red the first post of the thread, and it sounds interesting and educational.

Will have to wait to get home to focus more on the info.

Thank you. And I appreciate your honesty. I hope you enjoy the research in this thread. If you have any question's i'll be happy to answer them tomorrow even though you're not a fan

originally posted by: seagull
Not sure how I missed this, but very nicely done.

I think when I posted the thread back in April there was some bad timing going on with other major events in the news and it kinda just fell down the page.

Lol, makes me wonder what other posts like that I've done which might be worth another look. I am happy to see that people enjoy the research I assembled. A lot of it is little known outside of the community of people who dive into this stuff for a living.

SETI, especially with the inevitable discovery of Earth-type, and Earth-like, planets, is going to become very important, IMHO.

I agree. And the more search strategies the better the chance of finding something. That's why I wanted to point out the varied ways that science is looking.

I am quietly working on my own idea of how we might be able to detect nano-scale probes (if they exist) in our immediate neighborhood but that idea needs a lot of work and i'll probably want to put it into an academic paper first someday.

...and with people, like yourself Jade, who can break it down into language any layman, like myself, can understand, it'll stand a much better chance of public, and private, funding.

Again, nicely done.

Thank you. That's why I'm here, to break it down because alhough academic papers are interesting to me, the language can be a barrier and hide the awesomeness inside them to the average person who would be be very interested in the research if they knew it existed.

Awesome, 10 Applause if i could mod. Learned so much then. thank you

a reply to: JadeStar
OK, I thougth this a more recent post/thread. I think I chimed in, but can't find my post. But I digress. What ever conclusions came about to the the WOW! Signal? from the strong narrowband bandwith?
Was it alien? Was it a pulsar? Was it a Supernova? Blackhole devouring another sun at the center of our galaxy?

originally posted by: Kratos40
a reply to: JadeStar
OK, I thougth this a more recent post/thread. I think I chimed in, but can't find my post. But I digress. What ever conclusions came about to the the WOW! Signal? from the strong narrowband bandwith?
Was it alien? Was it a pulsar? Was it a Supernova? Blackhole devouring another sun at the center of our galaxy?

It was a strong narrowband signal I believe which lasted 12 seconds. Beyond that no one knows. It could be any of the above. It could have been Star Wars in a galaxy, far, far away for all we know.

It never repeated and SETI experiments often go back to those sky coordinates in hopes that something else interesting pops up but so far nothing.

I think a useful experiment would be to monitor that tiny patch of sky for anything anomalous (radio, lasers, etc) continuously for 10 years. To my knowledge this has never been done though as I said, it is periodically checked.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
I used to have 3 of my home computers running SETI at home. It was interesting and I only stopped because I don't have a regular or reliable interner connection after I moved out to into the country. That was around 15 years ago.I had a hilarious thing happen one night, related to SETI.

My sister was visiting from out of town. She was a smoker, so I went out on the front porch to sit with her while she smoked. My kooky cat, that gets a bit testy if anything in his world changes, decided to slam the front door shut. We are now on the porch. The door is locked.Thank goodness the front window was unlocked, which told me my sister was probably smoking in the house and blowing the smoke out the window when I wasn't home, but at this time I was grateful it was open. Just as I got the screen off and was lifting the window, a police car comes along. Of course I had to explain why I was breaking into my own house.

They were a little skeptical when I told them my cat was upset that my sister is visiting, and it locked us out of the house. So they requested proof that I lived there. I explained I had to enter the house to get my ID. They gave me permission to enter through the window. I explained I would go in, open the door, allow them to enter, and I would present my ID. Well after I came in the window, all the fun was over, and there were two odd folks at the door, my cat Lazarus, opened the door. They were a little surprised to see me just stepping into the room from the outside and the door opening with the cat standing there looking at them. One of the cops said he wasn't too surprised that my cat had closed the door, but it didn't know he could open it. I said it is just a tricked he has learned how to do.

It got a little more interesting when one of officers recognized the SETI at home display on my computer. He said he had heard something about SETI, and he asked me what it was about. I told him SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. With that, the other officer said, "That's it." "Lady, I believe you live here." " I don't need to see your ID." He walked, more like ran, out of the house.

His partner was laughing until my cat walked over and slammed the door. At this point he too was quite ready to leave as well.

It still makes my sister and I laugh when we remember that night.

I think SETI at home is not as mysterious today as it was back then, but it is still greatly misunderstood by many.

I am just not so sure anymore about the wisdom of sending out beacons to our planet, at this stage of our development. We are only begging to be enslaved if they are anything like us, and have greater technology. I may be wrong now, but I don't think so.

That's a great story! You REALLY ought to send it to Dan Werthimer (PI of SETI @ Home)!!! Knowing what I know about him and his sense of humor he'd love to hear it. Because that little screensaver likely saved you a trip to the police station if you couldn't find your ID. He might even use that anecdote in a talk he gives. He can be reached at UC Berkeley here: [email protected]

originally posted by: combatmaster
a reply to: JadeStar

Great thread! S&F

Does this mean SETI can detect life that is not constrained to the physical matter i.e. type III civ?

sorry if i missed it im just not so good with technical terminology!

Great question.

Well lets break it down...

So life that is not constrained to physical matter? Like energy beings or maybe they're made out of something else, like dark matter perhaps?

I'd tend to think so with one caveat: They would have to have some interaction with our physical universe.

A good example of this is how dark matter was discovered. We have no idea what dark matter would look like if we could hold it in our hands but we know it is there because of its effects on matter which we CAN see.

So let's say these hypothetical non-physical dark matter beings were flying around in starships using warp drives. While we might not be able to meet the dark matter starship captain, or even take an image of the dark matter starship, we could possibly detect the effect of the dark matter starship warping space/time as I detailed above.

As to Type III civilizations there have been searches done for them and if they exist they are either very far from us, very recent or very sneaky. We've not detected any of the things we think would give away their existence but there are some anomalies which could be due to one or two but are most likely just due to interstellar dust clouds, and other natural astrophysical phenomena. So no Type IIIs (or Type IIs or Type I's for that matter) have been detected but the search is young and as a species, so are we.

originally posted by: Darkblade71
a reply to: JadeStar

Awesome thread.
I used to participate in the Seti@home project many years ago.
I might have to again.

At some point, someone will find something.
It has to happen.

The thought of something orbiting a dead planet being detected first just makes the imagination go wild.
There are so many possibilities in the universe...
Mind blowing stuff when you think about it.

S&F

Thank you for the Seti update!

You're welcome.

I have to admit as a former "goth chick" my favorite type of SETI detection would be finding a necro world, a planet whose civilization died and just left crazy advanced ruins in orbit around it and it's star. For this reason one of the things I have looked into in my spare time for fun, is what it would take to spectroscopically detect heavy radioactive isotopes, (stuff which could only be the result of a nuclear conflict or disaster) in the atmosphere of a nearby exoplanet.

Depressing as it might be to learn another civilization didn't quite make it, it would prove that intelligence (and lack thereof) arises elsewhere in the galaxy, and serve as a cautionary note for our whole world to see how not to conduct ourselves.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn

originally posted by: Darkblade71
a reply to: JadeStar

Awesome thread.
I used to participate in the Seti@home project many years ago.
I might have to again.

At some point, someone will find something.
It has to happen.

The thought of something orbiting a dead planet being detected first just makes the imagination go wild.
There are so many possibilities in the universe...
Mind blowing stuff when you think about it.

S&F

Thank you for the Seti update!

It is so hard to believe it has been that long ago for me. They really have come a long way. Especially since they didn't get the kind of support they needed in the beginning.

Makes me wonder.

What turned them around?

The discovery of Earthlike exoplanets. That really has given SETI new life.

Even this week there was a story about a Russian billionaire who has decided to spend 100 Million dollars of his money to fund a new massive SETI search in Australia.

Finding planets like ours or similar to ours out there makes the whole idea of look for other beings a bit less sci-fi and a bit more practical.

originally posted by: Kojiro
I feel like life is finally starting to take a new direction. Wouldn't it be amazing if we did detect something coming from this new planet?

Okay, yeah, so I'm only really commenting to add this to my subscribed threads. Sue me.

It would be amazing to find something coming from this new planet. I think Kepler first detected it transiting (passing between its star and us) back in 2011.

The planet is 1,400 light years away which means light from its star takes 1,400 years to reach our Earth. So that dip in the light of the star which Kepler measured to detect it initially happened 1,400 years ago.

The planet is also around 2 billion years older than Earth.

With that in mind:

NASA's Kepler spacecraft first spotted this planet by looking for a small dip in the light of the star it orbits as the planet passed between it's star and Earth about 50 years before Christopher Columbus was born. It would take 1,400 years for that dip in light to reach Earth and Kepler.

If life existed on that planet and became advanced and technological in nature then it might be or have been like we may become in the far future if we survive the next 2 billion years.

At the time their planet passed between their star and us, 1,400 years ago any alien astronomers (if they existed on that planet) looking in our direction with some sort of immense advanced super array of space telescopes would see our Earth as it existed in the year 789.

Such an advanced alien space telescope array might have been able to see something down to the size of a small car.

If so then they what might they have see?

Pyramids in Egypt, The Great Wall of China, the Pyramid at Chichen Itza, some of the villages and towns of the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia and a whole lot of wars and conflicts.

a reply to: JadeStar

Great answer Jadestar.... i didnt wanna make my question too long/detailed, but its as if you read my mind, hit the nail on the head, so to speak!

a reply to: JadeStar

I don't think we are ready to "visit" any inhabited planet. I hope our first visit will be a Necro world. It will be like a kindergarten experience. I just hope our world will not end up being that planet that other beings learn from.

originally posted by: combatmaster
a reply to: JadeStar

Great answer Jadestar.... i didnt wanna make my question too long/detailed, but its as if you read my mind, hit the nail on the head, so to speak!

I'm glad I could help. It was a great question.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
a reply to: JadeStar

I don't think we are ready to "visit" any inhabited planet. I hope our first visit will be a Necro world. It will be like a kindergarten experience. I just hope our world will not end up being that planet that other beings learn from.

I agree totally.

There was an episode of the reboot of Cosmos with Neil De Grasse Tyson called "Standing Up in the Milky Way Galaxy".

That title kind of sums up how our first forays into seeking knowledge about what (or who) might be out there. We're like a baby, just standing up in it's crib and looking around, marvelling at the room.

We have to learn to walk before we can run so finding a necro world would certainly serve that purpose.

I feel it is highly unlikely but given the eerie silence, perhaps there are more necro worlds to be found than ones which are inhabited at any point in time.

It could be civilization happens so infrequently in our Milky Way galaxy, that no two civilization's timelines ever overlap.

They all could become necro worlds for the next one to find.

a reply to: JadeStar

I don't believe it for a second.. but Isaac Asimov's Robots
of Dawn series had an answer for 'the Eerie silence'.

In that series, robots who followed the 3 laws of robotics
evolved to become so powerful, that they basically
groomed the entire universe to be 'human friendly'
and that basically meant killing off anything which
could possibly harm a human. (non-human
sentient life).

Maybe there WAS one super duper race 5 billion
years ago, who wiped out all complex life to
protect themselves.. and we just happened to
come along after that.

It's certainly conceivable.

Kev

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

Honestly, i dont think it is feasible because apparently the universe is only 13 billion yrs old.... think about it... 13 billion yrs isnt long at all (for the universe, earth has been around for a third of that time.

Therefore, it kinda narrows down the possibility of how much could transpire in such a comparatively short time.

Unless ofcourse im mistaken about the supposed age of the universe!

originally posted by: combatmaster
a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

Honestly, i dont think it is feasible because apparently the universe is only 13 billion yrs old.... think about it... 13 billion yrs isnt long at all (for the universe, earth has been around for a third of that time.

Therefore, it kinda narrows down the possibility of how much could transpire in such a comparatively short time.

Unless ofcourse im mistaken about the supposed age of the universe!

Actually most of the Universe is invisible to us, as the speed of light
is surpassed by the Universe which expanded so quickly during
the moment of chaotic inflation.

All that's required would be for such a 'super race' to have wiped out life
with some automatic mechanisms like probes or nannites for a goodly
distance around us, and for all we will ever know we are alone.

Now, what happened outside the 'light cone' I believe the term is,
we will never know. It could be crowded with life out there.. or
in other islands of continuous big bangs that are postulated by
some of the big boys in cosmology.

In short, plenty of time in my opinion.

Kev

originally posted by: Kratos40
a reply to: JadeStar
OK, I thougth this a more recent post/thread. I think I chimed in, but can't find my post. But I digress. What ever conclusions came about to the the WOW! Signal? from the strong narrowband bandwith?
Was it alien? Was it a pulsar? Was it a Supernova? Blackhole devouring another sun at the center of our galaxy?

The wow signal occupied a single channel 10 KiloHertz wide. That's 1/20 the width of an FM (VHF) radio broadcast. A very narrow band width, and not something at all likely to be emitted by a natural astrophysical phenomenon like a pulsar, supernova, or black hole.
Due to the fact that the signal lasted just long enough for a source that moved with the fixed stars to pass through the beam of the antenna, it was thought likely that the object was at least as distant as the Moon.
The signal was never traced to a satellite ( not many at the distance of the Moon, or farther out, anyway, especially in those days. An enduring mystery, and quite possibly a real ET signal.