Bold Prediction: Intelligent Alien Life Could Be Found by 2040

This article mentions the growing optimism I've been talking about here on ATS with regards to our chance of finding intelligent life in our Galaxy in the next 30 years. I've mentioned it in these two ATS threads:

New Earth Hunting European Space Telescope Wins Approval

Humans came long after aliens, scientist suggests.

And this fictional one: Astronomers Detect First 'Clear Signs of Civilization' Beyond Earth - How will you react?


Here's today's story....

From this Space.com article:

PALO ALTO, Calif. — The first detection of intelligentextraterrestrial life will likely come within the next quarter-century, a prominent alien hunter predicts.

By 2040 or so, astronomers will have scanned enough star systems to give themselves a great shot of discovering alien-produced electromagnetic signals, said Seth Shostak of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, Calif.

"I think we'll find E.T. within two dozen years using these sorts of experiments," Shostak said here Thursday (Feb. 6) during a talk at the 2014 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) symposium at Stanford University.

"Instead of looking at a few thousand star systems, which is the tally so far, we will have looked at maybe a million star systems" 24 years from now, Shostak said. "A million might be the right number to find something."

Many potentially habitable worlds

Shostak's optimism is based partly on observations by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope, which has shown that the Milky Way galaxy likely teems with worlds capable of supporting life as we know it.

"The bottom line is, like one in five stars has at least one planet where life might spring up," Shostak said. "That's a fantastically large percentage. That means in our galaxy, there's on the order of tens of billions of Earth-like worlds."

(snip)

I've posted this infographic before but it seems appropriate here:



Those numbers are staggering. It means the average distance between civilizations may be much closer than we thought.


Continuing....

"The bottom line is, like one in five stars has at least one planet where life might spring up," Shostak said. "That's a
fantastically large percentage. That means in our galaxy, there's on the order of tens of billions of Earth-like worlds."

Shostak and his colleagues think at least some of these worlds host intelligent aliens — beings that have developed the capability to send electromagnetic signals out into the cosmos, as human civilization does every second of every day. So they're pointing big radio dishes toward the heavens, hoping to detect something produced by living beings.

And before anyone says, "well that's dumb, why would they be using radio...." a lot of technologies use radio or produce radio waves not necessarily as a means of communication.

Earth's powerful planetary radars (like the one at Arecibo which was used to take pictures of potentially Earth threatening asteroids like 2012 DA14) and our military search radars are highly detectable at interstellar distances.

I've always believed we've already had the evidence or detected the signals already -- but we as a species just aren't ready to do deal with the implications.

I also feel that we're being broken into the idea of alien life very slowly. It seems every time I turn around these days were a tiny bit closer to "discovering" alien life. Eventually people will just shrug their shoulders at the discovery of alien life and say, "Yeah, so? We pretty much assumed there was alien life for the last 70 years". I think when we are so used to the idea of alien life we shrug our shoulders -- that will be when the discovery will be announced.

MystikMushroom
I've always believed we've already had the evidence or detected the signals already -- but we as a species just aren't ready to do deal with the implications.

While I wouldn't be shocked if some of the one time, non-repeating "Wow" type signals SETI receives occasionally were extraterrestrial in origin, I'm pretty sure if any of them were persistent and repeated then their discoverers would be clamoring for their Nobel Prize.

It has nothing to do with "being ready". By the way, most people my age were born ready. It's like: "Where are all the aliens already?"

I also feel that we're being broken into the idea of alien life very slowly. It seems every time I turn around these days were a tiny bit closer to "discovering" alien life. Eventually people will just shrug their shoulders at the discovery of alien life and say, "Yeah, so? We pretty much assumed there was alien life for the last 70 years".

This is not part of some grand conspiracy so much as the rollout of ever more sensitive instruments which are zooming in, in greater detail and confining the search space so that yes, that alien detection seems pretty inevitable.

As my professor said, "It's probably not a matter of "if" anymore, not like it was when I was sitting in a class like you. Now it's more a question of "when" and how soon we find alien life and potentially alien intelligences."

In astronomy there is a saying, "if there is one, there are probably at least a billion."

It's just recently that that has been applied to US.

reply to post by JadeStar


"PALO ALTO, Calif. — The first detection of intelligent extraterrestrial life will likely come within the next quarter-century, a prominent alien hunter predicts."

I don't know why they are spending do much. If they want intelligence they should just come over to my house. My wife knows everything.

Dizak
reply to post by JadeStar

 

"PALO ALTO, Calif. — The first detection of intelligent extraterrestrial life will likely come within the next quarter-century, a prominent alien hunter predicts."

I don't know why they are spending do much. If they want intelligence they should just come over to my house. My wife knows everything.

You are a good husband.

reply to post by JadeStar


Thank you. I try. I think that's what makes my marriage work. lol

As with many of us in science, I am a huge music fan (and i minor in it).

So since the title of the article had 2040 in the title.....

Does this mean my Son-in-law may be getting smarter someday? By that time he should have his citizenship and he won't be an alien anymore.

I think we should look for signs of intelligent life on this planet first...

Soloprotocol
I think we should look for signs of intelligent life on this planet first...

edit on 10-2-2014 by Soloprotocol because: (no reason given)

We've been searching for years.....

No reason why we can't do both. It's called multi-tasking.

Oh, it will happen before 2040. Its just gotta. I will be 60 years old by then and awaiting the heart attack that will take my life.

Hell, I may not even live to see 2040.
Nah, it will happen in my lifetime.

ETA: in other words, I doubt they will have to search NEARLY 1,000,000 star systems to find it.

reply to post by JayinAR


It will only be discovered when it fits the best interest of national security. I'm guessing we will find microbiological life or past life first, then advanced ET contact and then maybe past advanced ET contact after.

This article is great news! S&F

reply to post by JadeStar


Good post Jadestar. SnF.

I'm of the belief that since the general public is 40-50 years behind what's known behind closed doors, other life outside of Earth has already been found per the 2040 speculation. We just haven't been told yet.

Yeah... I don't know if I'd call a quarter century a "Bold Prediction". If you had said "by next Tuesday", I'd call that insanely optimistic, but a comfortable medium, like, say 10 years. That would qualify as sufficiently bold. Even allowing time for it to be reviewed and re-reviewed.

I think crowd-sourced signal data processing will give us much faster results.

game over man
reply to post by JayinAR

 

It will only be discovered when it fits the best interest of national security. I'm guessing we will find microbiological life or past life first, then advanced ET contact and then maybe past advanced ET contact after.

This article is great news! S&F

I guess there is the possibility of finding microbial life on Mars first...and that could happen as early as tomorrow.

But in regards to this stuff Jade keeps bring to the boards, I highly doubt such a discovery would be covered up.
"City Lights on an Alien World" would be top headlines for a month if it were to ever be discovered, and the scientists who discovered it would deserve the Nobel Prize.

I figure we should get results from these experiments pretty soon. +/- 5 years. I can't see the risk to National Security of saying "we found a city on planet x. We are not alone."
People are ready.

JadeStar
...It has nothing to do with "being ready". By the way, most people my age were born ready. It's like: "Where are all the aliens already?"...

Heck, even common people in the past were apt to believe in "Moon Men" or "Martians". The idea that other intelligent life is out there somewhere is not that novel of an idea.

i guess that when alien contact is disclosed, access to them will be tightly guarded as there are a lot of nutters out there on the streets.

For the benefit of those who didn't read the whole article. An important point was made about the search for life in the universe.

It's a 3-way race between competing between different approaches.

A three-way race to find life in space

The search for alien life does not focus solely on technological societies, of course. Many other scientists are keying in on simple life forms, which must be distributed much more commonly throughout the universe.

The first evidence of microbial life on Earth, for instance, dates from 3.8 billion years ago — just 700 million years after our planet formed. But it took another 1.7 billion years for multicellular life to evolve. Humans didn't emerge until 200,000 years ago, and we've become a truly technological species in just the last century or so.

Shostak thus views the alien life hunt as a three-way race. The contenders are researchers looking for advanced, intelligent civilizations; scientists scouring solar-system bodies such as Mars and Jupiter's moon Europa for simple organisms; and researchers focusing on finding signs of microbial life on nearby exoplanets using future instruments such as NASA's $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope, which is scheduled to launch in 2018.

The race may come down to the wire, as Shostak thinks all three approaches could bear fruit in the next few decades.

"I think any of these horses has a pretty good chance of succeeding — just my opinion — a pretty good chance of succeeding in the next 20 years, say," he said during the NIAC talk.

Here are the different approaches and their instruments illustrated:


Looking for life in our Solar System...On.....

Mars:



Europa:


Titan:


Enceladus:














Looking for life's biomarkers in the atmospheres of Earthlike planets around other stars:




Illustration: Gliese 581 g


James Webb Space Telescope (JWST):


Hubble's mirror compared to James Webb's

Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) - Chile:




Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) - Hawaii:



European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) - Chile:


Colossus:


















And looking for signs of technologically produced electromagnetic emissions in the radio and infrared spectrum SETI:

Arecibo - Puerto Rico:


Allen Telescope Array (ATA) -California:


Square Kilometer Array (SKA) - Australia or South Africa:




And...

Colossus:

reply to post by JadeStar


Good post! Although I am slightly surprised.

Why am I surprised? Because here you present material and personal opinion not only suggesting that an intelligent alien life form exists out there but also that it is very likely they came before us (which I think is a completely rational assumption). I guess I thought before that you were not a fan of assuming intelligent life out there - my bad.

Yet, I've seen you in other threads regarding topics such as 'Reptilians' and you denounced those ideas with the strongest passion I've seen. I'm even more surprised now that you weren't intrigued by the countless information that was provided to you regarding Reptilian/ancient alien mythos, but nevermind - I understand. You've made sense of the modern alien/abduction theories yourself and are not willing to entertain it further. Maybe one day I'll feel the same again.

Back on topic - I wouldn't be surprised at all if its achieved within this century. Especially now as the technology to 'scan' space is significantly sufficient enough for such a search. I was arguing the case for alien life (albeit not necessarily intelligent) from the tense age of 9-10. It was when I first read a 'Horrible Science' kids book on space and found out how many stars are estimated to exist in this universe. It really doesn't take anyone special to realise at that point, and straight away, that there must be a stupid amount of habitable planets out there.

I honestly believe life is instrincally linked to the universe. Why? I could never possibly do my argument justice through this medium but in a brief sense there are two main factors.

Firstly, the universe as we know it and perceive it ceases to exist without life. That is to say; without any living form 'decoding' the informational source of the universe, there becomes no universe as we know it. Light ceases to exist without an observer of light and matter is nothing but the unique interaction between light and the 'source'. That beautiful flower doesn't exist unless there is life to perceive its beauty.

Or in another sense; we know for a fact that solidity as well as all the other facets of our senses are complete illusions. You are not seeing an actual table in front of you - you are seeing 'light' collect information from an atomic informational source which is then decoded via your bodily functions (based on parameters such as frequency of vibration/state change and the wavelength of EM radiation) and finally perceived in a 'meaningful' form by you.

Effectively we are consciousness using our bodies to 'solidly' or bring into existence this informational field. Much like a computer reading a disc or wireless Internet signals being decoded into the meaningful Internet.

Secondly, evolution is evidently a natural process that I cannot doubt - but I do not for one second believe that the full range of possible mutations are an accident. One way or another, from the moment of our universes inception, we were a possibility. That is powerful knowledge.

It's one thing to state we got lucky with the mutations that led us here over billions of years, but its a whole different ball game to attempt to claim it is not impressive or atleast intriguing that the universe just happens to also allow the mutations required to result in us - self-aware, fine-tuned conscious experiencers of the universe who can not only over ride their biological instincts and the functions of their 'nature'/ego but also LEARN.

Not just animalistic conditioned learning either - I.e give a dog a treat each time after a desired task - but an ability of knowledge so deep that we can literally understand the principles of the universe.

When I combine these opinions of mine with the mathematics or should I say probability of such a thing - it becomes a no-brainer to me. There is definitely life out there and it is almost definitely (by the laws of numbers) a civilisation either close to our ability of intelligence or not far off.

They do not even require the same technological advancements as us yet - since that is not the true sign of intelligence. The fact is, from the moment Homo sapiens sapiens were conceived, so was the ability for all of our modern technological advancements. This is rational.

So, even if there are cavemen like existences out there, it means that we can successfully class them as significantly intelligent. If we do not, then we must assume our technological advancements were the product of external assistance and not our own doing.a

All in all, I strongly await the day it is confirmed. I feel it might be the one thing that could just unite humanity again, even if its to a slighty greatly extent than today.

Of course...all that being said Jade, we must always consider the following questions (as I'm sure an intelligent person like yourself is aware of):

Could we ever physically reach them? Even with near light speed capabilities it is not plausible at all for smooth communication although the nearest stars might be possible.

If not, can we communicate in an efficient manner? All EM radiation is impractical in terms of time and we are also assuming we will be able to establish a common ground of communication (I.e language).

If intelligent alien life is probable in our universe, where are they? Are they silent due to my previous point? Have they visited Earth in the past? Is there evidence for that? Arguably YES. Are they visiting us now? Is there evidence for that? Arguably YES.

Our hypothesis should suggest they are visiting us currently or have done in the past, but this is based off the assumption that there are easier ways to traverse our beautiful universe than to propel things really fast lol.

If we assume that we are forever bound to near light (or much less ~ 1/2 light speed) travel, then does this grand question even matter beyond the immediate effect of answering an age old question? (Which is still worth it in my mind).

Perhaps the universe exists in such a manner that any developed intelligent races are never meant to reach eachother. The fact our celestial bodies are all accelerating from eachother at an increasing rate it would seem that as time passes our likelihood of utilising light speed travel to efficiently communicate with life is constantly diminishing.

Whatever the case is, I also believe strongly that there is not long left before we have official confirmation. You must remember, even though it is healthy to always be skeptical, that THERE IS the chance - however farfetched it may appear - that we have been and/or are already in contact with an alien, intelligent life form.

If that is the case, then I worry our concerns are completely misplaced in this search for life, and perhaps we should also be keeping a close eye on what's happening here on our good Earth.

D.

DazDaKing
reply to post by JadeStar

 

Firstly, the universe as we know it and perceive it ceases to exist without life. That is to say; without any living form 'decoding' the informational source of the universe, there becomes no universe as we know it. Light ceases to exist without an observer of light and matter is nothing but the unique interaction between light and the 'source'. That beautiful flower doesn't exist unless there is life to perceive its beauty.

the universe existed before there was any life, as did stars and their light.