Needle in a hay stack

Questions and Answers : Wish list : Needle in a hay stack

Author	Message
Aertieken Send message Joined: 22 Aug 09 Posts: 2 Credit: 0 RAC: 0	Message 927959 - Posted: 22 Aug 2009, 9:52:44 UTC
	So after doing a bit of reading on how Seti operates it would seem that scanning space for a message from ET would be like trying to find a needle in a hay stack. Firstly why would ET direct thier signal at us when there are plenty other worlds that hold races that are potentially less hostile than Earth. Secondly why even search for something (as in the said signal) that may or may not be there. I propose a different strategy to you at SETI. Why don't we make the signal come to us. I propose that we should aim a data stream on a microwave ranged signal at various exoplanets that hold a high possibility of developing life ensuring that a signal is indeed returned to us rather than wait for something that may or may not happen....Bring the signal to us. I choose the microwave signal because I believe it would be as universally constant as mathematics considering it makes up the cosmic background we would know for certain that advanced species would have discovered that it is consistant throughout and also manipulated it for communications and energy as we have and would therfore have a reciever to gather the data.
	ID: 927959 ·

John McLeod VII Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 15 Jul 99 Posts: 22343 Credit: 439,209 RAC: 396	Message 928000 - Posted: 22 Aug 2009, 14:59:03 UTC
	A radio signal does not have to be aimed. Broadcasts go in every direction. We are doing the experiment already with every commercial radio or TV broadcast. We have yet to find any exoplanets similar to earth. We are getting closer, but we are not there yet. ____________ BOINC WIKI
	ID: 928000 ·

Aertieken Send message Joined: 22 Aug 09 Posts: 2 Credit: 0 RAC: 0	Message 928099 - Posted: 22 Aug 2009, 23:49:44 UTC - in response to Message 928000.
	Thanks for the reply john. I did not realize that you were broadcasting messages already. (Unless you are talking about Earths every day broadcasts). One of the other reasons why I suggested the microwave wavelength is because it can be directly targeted. We are finding more and more expolanets as time goes on and a couple of those are supposedly good candidtes for life. But I suppose there is the factor of funding first the investigation of sentient beings on these planets and then funding a microwave pulse to these planets timed correctly so that there will be no interference for the direct beam as microwaves are effected by solid bodies. But one would have thought a proposal that would increase the chances of recieving a message from ET could be presented to large corporations (such as NASA) for funding, as long as it was proven to increse the chances.
	ID: 928099 ·

John McLeod VII Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 15 Jul 99 Posts: 22343 Credit: 439,209 RAC: 396	Message 928135 - Posted: 23 Aug 2009, 4:02:05 UTC
	I was talking about earths every day broad casts. However, there was signal sent out a few years ago by a different SETI group from the Aricebo telescope. ____________ BOINC WIKI
	ID: 928135 ·

[ue] J. Johansson Send message Joined: 10 Aug 02 Posts: 22 Credit: 1,101,828 RAC: 1,030	Message 929335 - Posted: 28 Aug 2009, 21:52:13 UTC - in response to Message 927959.
	I propose that we should aim a data stream on a microwave ranged signal at various exoplanets that hold a high possibility of developing life ensuring that a signal is indeed returned to us rather than wait for something that may or may not happen....Bring the signal to us. The major problem on that is distance. It would take years for a signal to reach even the closest systems. And after the signal would reach them, we would have to wait many years for a reply, provided that there was someone with the technical ability to receive such transmission, provided that they just happened to point their telescopes at us at right moment, provided that they would actually send a reply, after all, many people here on Earth would choose not to reply, fearing that the aliens might not be friendly. So a scenario where aliens do receive transmissions from Earth, and determine that they are alien, and choose not to respond is not impossible. Personally I don't believe that a some sort of list of candidate exoplanets would be particularly usefull, because the list of all exoplanets is quite short, and consists largely of planets considered unsuitable for life. And its not just that, I have allways believed that most stars have planets, discovery of first exoplanets merely confirmed what I had allways "known", the fact that it took so long on the other hand, proves that detecting exoplanets is extremely difficult, not that they would be extremely rare. Maybe even life is much more common than we think. Maybe the "cosmic haystack" is not just a very large haystack with wery few needles, maybe there are a lot of needles, maybe the needles are right under our noses, we just can't tell the difference between hay and needles. S@H databases are full of signals, it is possible that most or all are from natural sources, or maybe those databases are full of alien transmissions, it would be impossible to tell the difference, what we need is a confirmed signal source. Since we do not know where to look, the logical approach is to look everywhere, it will just take a lot of time to get enough scans to confirm a signal source. This work will propably take years before we can expect to see any results, but on the other hand, confirmimg the first exoplanets took a very long time, but it happened, now there are many known exoplanets. It is possible that after a couple more complete scans we start to find multiple signals from same location, which would indicate a signal source, after detecting one or few possible signal sources they would propably begin to actively observe these targets, propably with multiple telescopes to verify the results. But all of this will take time. However, the new multibeam receiver will cut this time, so maybe discovery of first possible signal sources is allready quite close. And after the first "hit" in those databases, more will probably follow quite soon, because at that point we have enough data to compare to, a signal will not be just a signal anymore, but one of many, ____________
	ID: 929335 ·

Questions and Answers : Wish list : Needle in a hay stack