Why Haven't We Found Life Yet In the Universe?
- Thread starter Dryson
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At this point I am happy we haven't found other life outside of our planet. We don't have a particularly good track record caring for the virtually endless varieties of life here on Earth, I can't imagine we would be very good at protecting any "alien" life that we were to discover.
Exactly! That was my point.
On a BBC Horizon program "The Search for Life: The Drake Equation", Frank Drake tells an anecdote about Carl Sagan getting bored when Green Bank didn't pick up any aliens signals within an hour of starting to scan the candidate stars Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani during Project Ozma. Even Sagan seems to have had unrealistic expectations. Back in 1960, the Drake equation predicted about 25,000 civilisations in the Milky Way as being capable of sending detectable radio transmissions. That's 1 civilisation per 10 million stars -- similar to the typical odds of winning a UK Lottery jackpot. We've barely started.
From what I've read, even Drake's definition of "detectable radio transmissions" was amazingly optimistic to begin with. From what I've read recently, it seems a civilization comparable to ours would have to be sending radio signals DIRECTLY AT US at extremely high outputs for us to even be aware of the signal; beyond about 60 light years, the signal would be detectable (barely) but probably not decipherable.
And when we move away from directed signals and go with leaked noise such as TV signals, it gets worse.
Our TV signals are weak. With our level of technology we could detect them from about 1 lightyear. If our technological clones lived on a planet in orbit of the nearest star, we would not currently pick up their TV signals.
So basically we should be focusing within a 40 to 50 light year range for alien signals?
I would also have to disagree with the T.V. signals being weak. I think some people are receiving alien transmissions better than they realize.
Maybe we need to move away from radio signals altogether and focus on the most powerful and fastest form of communication.
Light.
A series of reflector arrays would be set in orbit around the Sun at a distance that they would not get vaporized at, maybe 100 miles from the Earth between the Sun and Earth. Their orbits would then allow a light based signal from the Sun to be sent in any direction every six hours. With the arrays being set in an orbit inside of the Earths orbit the reflection or "glint" would be noticeable enough to draw attention.
The best thing about this type of communication system would be that it would only take 50 years for each glint to be received. With four arrays reflecting 24 hours a day to various locations someone would pick up the glint for certain. Four arrays reflecting in the same location as they orbited the sun would mean that within 24 hours 200 years worth of light based communication would have taken place when the light signal was actually received.
To us the light signal would have just been sent within 24 hours but to them each light signal would have taken 50 years to reach them where each light signal would blink every six hours.
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I've always found it unlikely that an advanced civilisation would expend any effort advertising its presence in every direction. Humans have enough trouble getting along with even minor differences in culture and we tend to treat animals abominably even if we don't eat them. Aliens might well not be that much different from us in that respect. You might unknowingly be going on Galactic Grindr and figuratively get "ass-raped" for your trouble. It's easier and safer to generate every conceivable alien civilisation in virtual reality should you feel the need to explore.
I've stopped reading that stuff as I've run out of Blue Cheese dressing.
BWAH HA HA!!!
So, you all have failed me once again...
Disagree all you want, the mathematics is what it is.
Are there a lot of people sitting in front of their TVs watching alien transmissions and thinking "Shit, this reception is terrible, if only the signal was better" not realizing that all the static and white noise is SUPPOSED to be there?
There are so many things wrong with this idea, I don't even know where to start...
Let's begin with the obvious: a reflection from a small object in Earth orbit would NOT be visible from any appreciable distance. We know this because we already have literally tens of thousands of small objects in Earth orbit that are themselves quite reflective. None of these reflect enough sunlight to be detectable from any appreciable distance.
You DO know that radio waves travel at the speed of light, right?
BWAH HA HA!!!
What has always confounded me about Life in the Universe is why, when NASA, ESA and all the rest send rovers to Mars, no one ever puts a microscope on the damn thing, to look for Martian microbes. It seems the simplest thing to do and would be relatively inexpensive. Just scoop up some ice, let it melt a little and have a look inside. Personally, I do not believe that there is any life elsewhere in the Solar System that Space Agencies haven't deposited there, having been on the surface of a probe or rover, or whatnot. But it just seems to me that NASA deliberately refuses to put a microscope on these rovers in favour of its hopes for an eventual manned mission to Mars ... to give the astronauts something relevant to do.
I may be wrong, but I believe it's because they want to include only instruments guaranteed to return valuable information. Adding a microscope that may find nothing of interest means leaving out some other instrument.
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No ... you're right, of course. The most bang for the buck and all that.
Still, it is an intriguingly obvious thing to include on a mission. Now that you mention it, 'Frakes, I cannot remember ever hearing of a discussion or debate on including a microscope on any mission, anywhere! Not that I am privy to every conversation regarding mission experiments, but I do read a little...
@Dryson. Seriously, Man? Take the word of a 20+ year Teacher; you have got to get an Intro Science book and read it...
your Learning Pain Runs Deep. Share It With Me!
@Dryson. Seriously, Man? Take the word of a 20+ year Teacher; you have got to get an Intro Science book and read it...
your Learning Pain Runs Deep. Share It With Me!
Thanks for the update on that, Naughty and Nice. Such a device would be very useful if they ever send a probe to Europa, for example, as it searches through the limpid, dark lakes that lay concealed just beneath its icy surface. I'm doubtful there's any multi-cellular life in its briny deluge, so to be able to examine water-samples in-situ could prove invaluable.
Indeed...her fractured dermis offering glimpses of her netherregions...Impossible stark, alabaster surface, mottled. What secrets, indeed, lie within/beneath her very Essence? She, breathing, almost with Animation, streakcracks across her body. Hitherto unknown (unknowable?) regions of She...begging-daring for exploration...her chemistry and energy melding before us...Europa
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