Extra Terrestrial Life To Be Confirmed Late 2009?

[Albert Tatlock]

It's only a matter of time until the existance of extra-terrestrial life is proven IMO - that life now long dead and that extra-terrestrial life well alive.

 

We've only had the technology to look for it for just over 50 years. We've only being advertising our presence by radio/TV signals for just around 100 years.

 

It's a big-assed sky.

[VinnieK]

It's only a matter of time until the existance of extra-terrestrial life is proven IMO - that life now long dead and that extra-terrestrial life well alive.

 

We've only had the technology to look for it for just over 50 years. We've only being advertising our presence by radio/TV signals for just around 100 years.

 

Radio waves of the kind we broadcast degrade relatively quickly as they travel through space, making them indistinguishable from background radiation and various other cosmic noise, so (perhaps thankfully) it's very unlikely that any alien civilization has been picking up episodes of Lovejoy and the Price is Right. Similarly, we're very unlikely to pick up anything of that nature, which is why SETI looks for artificial signals over a pretty narrow frequency band that's known to be 'quiet'.

 

I'm fairly sceptical myself, and think it will take a lot longer for us to discover indisputible evidence of life in the universe (as in intelligent life, rather than rubbish microbial yawn forms cracked out of martian rocks and what have you). For a start we've only scanned a very small portion of the galaxy, and the best bet is picking up a signal that's been directly broadcast to us over this uncluttered frequency range, or via a tight beam transmission. The difficulty with this is that our interstellar chums might not be broadcasting to us, and even if they have, picking up on it depends a lot on being in the right place and looking in the right direction at the right time.

 

I suppose our chances of picking something up depends in some part on how you think habitable planets are distributed throughout the galaxy. I know there have been estimates that put them as relatively common, but our knowledge of planetary formation (not to mention the origin and development of life) is still incomplete, so I'm inclined to be a little more cautious when it comes to the idea that it might not be long before we can ask the Predator if he fancies a trip down the Rovers.

 

In a way, for me the search for habitable planets and so forth is the most interesting bit about searching for extraterrestrial life, in that if we find that there aren't as many suitable planets as we thought there would be, we have to ask why and look at our hypotheses again. By contrast, all this listening for chatty aliens is us playing the role of the cosmic peeping tom to some interstellar pretty girl. Sure, we might get a sordid little eye full, but then what? We work up the courage to initiate some stilted conversation with awkward pauses stretching over years until they get bored and/or get a restaining order from the space courts for harassment.

[Lao]

all this listening for chatty aliens is us playing the role of the cosmic peeping tom to some interstellar pretty girl. Sure, we might get a sordid little eye full, but then what? We work up the courage to initiate some stilted conversation with awkward pauses stretching over years until they get bored and/or get a restaining order from the space courts for harassment.

 

Send in william shatner.

[Albert Tatlock]

It's only a matter of time until the existance of extra-terrestrial life is proven IMO - that life now long dead and that extra-terrestrial life well alive.

 

We've only had the technology to look for it for just over 50 years. We've only being advertising our presence by radio/TV signals for just around 100 years.

 

Radio waves of the kind we broadcast degrade relatively quickly as they travel through space...Similarly, we're very unlikely to pick up anything of that nature...

You are of course making the assumption that they will be using technology as we understand it. They may be billions of years ahead of us.

I suppose our chances of picking something up depends in some part on how you think habitable planets are distributed throughout the galaxy.

I think we are discovering that habitable planets are more likely if anything, not less. Look at all of the planets that have been discovered in the last 10 years - albeit large and likely uninhabitable planets at present.

 

Given: we know of at least 100 billion galaxies, each containing around 100 billion stars; and many of our theories/discoveries so far seem to re-inforce the theories of the limitations in space travel (linked to the speed of light) - I still say though it is only a matter of time - a long time maybe - and I think our first contact will likely be some kind of automated 'intelligent' space probe from afar.

 

I say that because, if life has such a short time span, how would advanced civilisations use technology to live longer, happy and prosperous lives? With the advent of computing, we have actually tended to look far more inwardly than outwardly. We have tended to move to short range digital communications/broadcasting, and now leak far fewer signals into space.

 

We our ourselves nowt much more than brains with bodies to maintain those brains, the brain being neural networks which all operate on electrical signals. I suspect computing will 'soon' (within 100 years) allow human brains to be scanned and be able to be perfectly emulated inside computers, so that people can then effectively live forever inside 'worlds' where they are 'happy, successful and content' instead of the harshness of reality of little time and few resources.

 

'The matrix' in that respect, is not that far-fetched IMO. Richard Bransons' grandson may be able to offer trips giving people the choice to talk to themselves inside computers to see what it is like, offer people the choice after the end of their real earthly lives to 'live' happily ever and forever inside a computer - whilst the real world population shrinks to just a few million 200 year old 'guardians', scientists and technologists - who will effectively spend their time ensuring planet earth is protected and not visible to outsiders using systems designed by those of us inside the computers themselves - before they themselves are scanned and computerised at the end of their lives.

 

In the meantime, as life-times inside computers will have been extended to millenia, as a result time will become less and less important to humans, and space craft that will take thousands and thousands of years to explore the universe can still do so and bring back real information about the universe. Humans could be onboard as part of the computer. They could even be uploaded - back into human bodies 20 years before reaching their destination after a journey of thousands of years.

 

I don't think any of that kind of a human 'future' is as far fetched as some people might think it might be. The technology is there for us to do it (MRI/computers/cloning/test tube babies etc.), though it is simply not advanced enough yet for us to use it - and it has all happened in the last few 50 years. Though maybe other life elsewhere, a billion years ahead of us, have already done such things.

[Bobbie Bobster]

@VinnieK The Fermi Paradox tells us that there's still something fundamentally wrong with our models/understanding of these issues. 250bn stars in the Milky Way, been around for >10bn years and it only takes 5-50million years to colonise the glaxy - where is everybody?

[bluemonday]

Any developed species with any level of common sense would probably be inclined to avoid the human race like a plague.

[Albert Tatlock]

Interesting wiki page about all this.

[VinnieK]

You are of course making the assumption that they will be using technology as we understand it. They may be billions of years ahead of us.

 

I was more making a point about the technology we're using to receive transmissions.

 

I think we are discovering that habitable planets are more likely if anything, not less. Look at all of the planets that have been discovered in the last 10 years - albeit large and likely uninhabitable planets at present.

 

Well, that was the point. All of the planets we've discovered have, according to our own definition, not been habitable. Now, this is a limitation of the technology. We may find there are plenty of habitable planets, more than we expected, or less than we expected. That's what I meant by how this is pretty interesting, because our discoveries will force us to confirm or reassess our current predictions.

 

Given: we know of at least 100 billion galaxies, each containing around 100 billion stars; and many of our theories/discoveries so far seem to re-inforce the theories of the limitations in space travel (linked to the speed of light) - I still say though it is only a matter of time - a long time maybe - and I think our first contact will likely be some kind of automated 'intelligent' space probe from afar.

 

I think that's perhaps the least likely of all prospects of contact. To stand any realistic chance of reaching us, a probe would really have to be deliberately aimed at us. Were this the case, why would the aliens in question send a slow, inefficient probe rather than broadcast directly to us across the quieter bands of the electromagnetic spectrum which we're currently monitoring? Now, perhaps the aliens sent out some probes designed to indefinitely visit a series of star systems in the hope of discovering life. There's still no guarantee that they'll have sent one in our direction. In fact, if they have any sense, they'll have seen that in terms of time and resources such an approach is perhaps the worst, even compared with the fairly slim pickings of a SETI like scheme, way of contacting and searching for life elsewhere.

[manxy]

You are of course making the assumption that they will be using technology as we understand it. They may be billions of years ahead of us.

 

I was more making a point about the technology we're using to receive transmissions.

 

I think we are discovering that habitable planets are more likely if anything, not less. Look at all of the planets that have been discovered in the last 10 years - albeit large and likely uninhabitable planets at present.

 

Well, that was the point. All of the planets we've discovered have, according to our own definition, not been habitable. Now, this is a limitation of the technology. We may find there are plenty of habitable planets, more than we expected, or less than we expected. That's what I meant by how this is pretty interesting, because our discoveries will force us to confirm or reassess our current predictions.

 

Given: we know of at least 100 billion galaxies, each containing around 100 billion stars; and many of our theories/discoveries so far seem to re-inforce the theories of the limitations in space travel (linked to the speed of light) - I still say though it is only a matter of time - a long time maybe - and I think our first contact will likely be some kind of automated 'intelligent' space probe from afar.

 

I think that's perhaps the least likely of all prospects of contact. To stand any realistic chance of reaching us, a probe would really have to be deliberately aimed at us. Were this the case, why would the aliens in question send a slow, inefficient probe rather than broadcast directly to us across the quieter bands of the electromagnetic spectrum which we're currently monitoring? Now, perhaps the aliens sent out some probes designed to indefinitely visit a series of star systems in the hope of discovering life. There's still no guarantee that they'll have sent one in our direction. In fact, if they have any sense, they'll have seen that in terms of time and resources such an approach is perhaps the worst, even compared with the fairly slim pickings of a SETI like scheme, way of contacting and searching for life elsewhere.

With the Hadron collider coming back on line, can it form worm holes or even play about with time?

[jimbms]

With the Hadron collider coming back on line, can it form worm holes or even play about with time?

I did have an answer to that but decided not to risk a slap.

[VinnieK]

With the Hadron collider coming back on line, can it form worm holes or even play about with time?

 

I don't know that much about it, but from what I gather wormholes (which are incredibly hypothetical, in so much as they're only mentioned because they offer a solution to some of the equations in general relativity) are inherently unstable. As soon as conventional matter falls into one, it collapses. So, even if the LHC somehow created a wormhole, which even if possible would be tiny, it would collapse as soon as anything entered it.

[manxy]

@VinnieK The Fermi Paradox tells us that there's still something fundamentally wrong with our models/understanding of these issues. 250bn stars in the Milky Way, been around for >10bn years and it only takes 5-50million years to colonise the glaxy - where is everybody?

Check England under immigration

[Bombay Bad Boy]

Doesn't really help, couldn't resist

[VinnieK]

Doesn't really help, couldn't resist

 

Hm. Suddenly it makes sense. Brown is just a test run of a far wider scheme to crap up the world's nations and generally depress the human race into a state of glassy eyed resignation. Once that's achieved the interuniverse conquerors will sweep in and grind us all into a thick, nutritious paste on which to feed their livestock.

[acorn]

Could be nonsense but quite interesting!

 

Clicky

 

It is nonsense, utter nonsense.

 

 

Agreed, most definitely nonsense. At least it's harmless nonsense unlike the religious nonsense rammed down our throats.