Tag: SETI
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We’re effectively alone in the Universe, and that’s OK
Silence. Complete, unnerving silence. Despite decades of searches for any form of life, intelligent or otherwise, out there in the cosmos, the Universe has but one message for us: No one is answering. But that solitude is not a curse. The great expanse of the empty heavens above us does not carry with it an…
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We’re effectively alone in the Universe, and that’s OK
Silence. Complete, unnerving silence. Despite decades of searches for any form of life, intelligent or otherwise, out there in the cosmos, the Universe has but one message for us: No one is answering. But that solitude is not a curse. The great expanse of the empty heavens above us does not carry with it an…
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How ‘Big Data’ could help SETI researchers intensify the search for alien civilizations
Artwork shows the Gaia spacecraft against the background of the Milky Way. (ESA Illustration / D. Ducros) Could far-off aliens be sending out signals telling us they exist? If so, how would we know where to look? Researchers focusing on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, have laid out a new strategy for focusing…
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SETI and other alien-hunting strategies are dealing with new tools — and new troubles
Two PANOSETI telescopes are installed in the recently renovated Astrograph Dome at the Lick Observatory in California. PANOSETI will use a configuration of many SETI telescopes to allow simultaneous monitoring of the entire observable sky. (© Laurie Hatch Photo via UCSD) The search for extraterrestrial intelligence, better known as SETI, is taking advantage of a…
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Scientists look for new ways to track the technosignatures of alien civilizations
An artist’s conception shows a crumbling megastructure known as a Dyson sphere orbiting a distant star. Could such structures produce detectable technosignatures? (Danielle Futselaar Illustration) Could extraterrestrial civilizations leave their fingerprints as chlorofluorocarbons in planetary atmospheres, or the waste heat generated by industrial processes, or artificial bursts of neutrinos or gravitational waves? That’s what a…
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44 years after its first message to aliens, Arecibo Observatory calls for follow-up
A global contest will give the 1974 Arecibo Message a reboot. (Arecibo Observatory Illustration) The Arecibo Observatory today kicked off a student-focused competition to design a new message to beam to extraterrestrials, 44 years to the day since the first deliberate message was sent out from Arecibo’s 1,000-foot-wide radio telescope. “Our society and our technology…
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Are we alone? NASA turns to the search for technosignatures beyond Earth
An artist’s representation shows a megastructure known as a Dyson sphere capturing the energy from a distant star. Such a structure could create observable technosignatures pointing to the civilization behind its construction. (Credit: Danielle Futselaar / SETI International) It’s been a quarter-century since Congress cut off NASA funding for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or…
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Artificial intelligence helps SETI sleuths find more radio bursts from mystery source
Researchers used artificial intelligence to search through data from a radio source, capturing many more fast radio bursts than humans could. (Breakthrough Listen Illustration / Danielle Futselaar) Researchers at Breakthrough Listen, a multimillion-dollar campaign to seek out signals from alien civilizations, still don’t know exactly what’s causing repeated bursts of radio waves from an distant…
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Scientists come up with revised ‘Rio scale’ to rate claims of extraterrestrial contact
SETI pioneer Jill Tarter pays a visit to the Allen Telescope Array in California, one of the prime sites for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. (Credit: SETI Institute) For almost 60 years, efforts to pick up signs of extraterrestrial civilizations have yielded a big fat zero, but there have been plenty of false alarms to…
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How do we get our message across to the extraterrestrials? The answers are evolving
Astronomers and artists sent a binary-coded radio transmission in the direction of an extrasolar planet known as GJ273 b in 2017. (METI International Illustration / Danielle Futselaar) LOS ANGELES — Last year, scientists sent a binary-coded message telling the aliens what time it was. Next year, it’ll be the periodic table of the elements. And…