Hey, E.T.! The line is open

Hey, E.T.! The line is open

cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com

After years of preparation and testing, the SETI Institute has released the first results from a search for alien signals that uses the $50 million, 42-dish Allen Telescope Array. You didn't hear about it? Maybe that's because none of the thousands of signals picked up so far has rung an alarm bell.

Nevertheless, the fully functioning system represents the latest, greatest leap in the nearly 50-year-long search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI.

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Wonder if all of the money spent on projects such as this will prove fruitful. I remember reading a while back of a laser-flash spotted near the system of Gliese 581. Thinking back on that - I remember that it takes light many years to reach us from systems such as that, so it leads one to wonder if that laser flash happened centuries ago and we were just fortunate enough to see it.

That being said, this search for radio signals and forms of communications makes me wonder if it will even matter. If it takes light so long to reach us - what of radio signals? Surely they don't travel faster than light?

Who knows. I run SETI@home just to give some of my processor power to the search because I firmly believe - there's something out there. Somewhere.

cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Though I don't have an iron-clad link I can point to... I have heard that SETI limits the range in which they look for signals, ensuring that no signal is found...

This may be urban legend, though.

SETI have to limit the bandwidth they look at because technically it isn't possible to look at everything. They can only look at small sectors at a time and then only at certain bandwidths. Various theories have been put forward about what frequencies would be likely for an alien to use. These can always be argued because, by definition, the aliens will be different to us and they may treat as normal aspects of the universe we know nothing about, or we are aware of but think trivial.

SETI is like looking for that proverbial needle in a hay stack, but still a needle I reckon it's worth searching for.

Everyone will be laughing at seti when it is revelaed the Goverments of the world have actully been in contact for 50 odd years.

reply to post by mf_luder


No, it won't bear any fruit, at least any fruit it does bear won't be edible

It's a way to create more jobs, and siphon more money to the rich, not much more.

reply to post by mf_luder

I remember that it takes light many years to reach us from systems such as that, so it leads one to wonder if that laser flash happened centuries ago and we were just fortunate enough to see it.

That being said, this search for radio signals and forms of communications makes me wonder if it will even matter. If it takes light so long to reach us - what of radio signals? Surely they don't travel faster than light?

Well Gilese 581e is 20 lightyears away so the flash would have been emitted 20 years ago. Also Radio signals are in the Electromagnetic Spectrum, as is visual light. They all travel at the speed of light, which is roughly 186,000 miles per second. But yes that still limits the time it takes to get from point a to b. Even lightspeed is painfully slow in the vastness of the Universe.

Here is the thread about the signal from Gilese...Laser-like signal coming from Gilese 581e???

[edit on 6/14/2009 by jkrog08]

reply to post by Amaterasu


SETI only listens to a small part of the sky because that is the most efficient way. Space is far to large to randomly point directions, plus they try to hit the closer star system.

reply to post by jkrog08


Thanks for the info - I couldn't remember the distance of that particular system for the purposes of this thread. I appreciate it.

20 years ago!

That leaves some hope. If we're only getting a 20 year delay, if there is a civilization there, we could be lucky enough to spark contact with them.

20 Years is still a long time, and that's considering we're thinking about 20 years Earth time.

Who knows what a "year" is to those people, if they're there.

SETI is just getting started..

What, its been running for about 40 years now?

20 years for them to get our Signal, 20 years for them to send one back.

I bet it will read "Please, for the love of god, stop with the spam!!"