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posted by cmn32480 on Monday January 02 2017, @04:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the sorry-for-the-delay-in-our-response dept.

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2016/12/contact-with-proxmina-centauri-b

Douglas Vakoch, the former Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute, is launching the METI Initiative with one planet in mind: the recently discovered planet around Proxima Centauri, the closest star to Earth (and thus the closest exoplanet.)

Vakoch says that METI has more than a few targets in mind, there are a few advantages to Proxima Centauri b.

"First, it's close to our solar system, keeping the time for a roundtrip exchange as short as possible," Vakoch says. "Second, some have suggested that this exoplanet is potentially habitable."


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New Technologies, Strategies Expanding Search for Extraterrestrial Life 5 comments

New technologies, strategies expanding search for extraterrestrial life:

Emerging technologies and new strategies are opening a revitalized era in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). New discovery capabilities, along with the rapidly-expanding number of known planets orbiting stars other than the Sun, are spurring innovative approaches by both government and private organizations, according to a panel of experts speaking at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Seattle, Washington.

New approaches will not only expand upon but also go beyond the traditional SETI technique of searching for intelligently-generated radio signals, first pioneered by Frank Drake's Project Ozma in 1960. Scientists now are designing state-of-the-art techniques to detect a variety of signatures that can indicate the possibility of extraterrestrial technologies. Such "technosignatures" can range from the chemical composition of a planet's atmosphere, to laser emissions, to structures orbiting other stars, among others.

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and the privately-funded SETI Institute announced an agreement to collaborate on new systems to add SETI capabilities to radio telescopes operated by NRAO. The first project will develop a system to piggyback on the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) that will provide data to a state-of-the-art technosignature search system.

"As the VLA conducts its usual scientific observations, this new system will allow for an additional and important use for the data we're already collecting," said NRAO Director Tony Beasley. "Determining whether we are alone in the Universe as technologically capable life is among the most compelling questions in science, and NRAO telescopes can play a major role in answering it," Beasley continued.

"The SETI Institute will develop and install an interface on the VLA permitting unprecedented access to the rich data stream continuously produced by the telescope as it scans the sky," said Andrew Siemion, Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI at the SETI Institute and Principal Investigator for the Breakthrough Listen Initiative at the University of California, Berkeley. "This interface will allow us to conduct a powerful, wide-area SETI survey that will be vastly more complete than any previous such search," he added.

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  • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday January 02 2017, @04:10PM

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 02 2017, @04:10PM (#448535) Journal

    "I want to pick random coordinates from a pool of locations deep in the amazon rain forest and the bottom of the seas, and mail someone a letter at that location to see what their response is. I also plan to not use an actual tangible letter, but some ephemeral bursts of RF instead. Who's with me?"

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @04:24PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @04:24PM (#448545)

      That's a poor analogy, because we know there is no intelligence that is non-human at your proposed locations.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Monday January 02 2017, @05:23PM

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 02 2017, @05:23PM (#448570) Journal

        we know there is no intelligence that is non-human at your proposed locations

        Well, I wouldn't say categorically that "we know there isn't" [upliftconnect.com].

        That same statement goes for any Proxima b communication, verbatim (sans link).

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @11:07PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @11:07PM (#449127)

          Link discriminates against ETs:

          Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 02 2017, @05:00PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday January 02 2017, @05:00PM (#448563)

      I'm totally with you... right up there with putting messages in bottles and tossing them into the surf, then waiting for a reply.

      On the other hand, have you got a more efficient plan?

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by requerdanos on Monday January 02 2017, @05:25PM

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 02 2017, @05:25PM (#448571) Journal

        have you got a more efficient plan?

        No - this plan is on the order of the best I have seen so far. The analogy was meant more to convey the low apparent chance of success, illustrating our striving even in the face of adversity to gain knowledge.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Monday January 02 2017, @05:25PM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday January 02 2017, @05:25PM (#448572) Journal

        Launch the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, launch the James Webb Space Telescope on schedule*, find more exoplanets and maybe some exomoons, look for exo-atmospheres with evidence of vegetation or artificial/alien-made compounds, examine those locations in more detail, then decide what to do from there. If something like METI was likely to work, it would only be because the galaxy is swarming with aliens and they have probes and ships monitoring nearly every solar system.

        * On the current schedule with no additional delays.

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 02 2017, @05:33PM

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday January 02 2017, @05:33PM (#448579)

          That sounds like the current plan... best we've got with the available funding, I guess.

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @06:33PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @06:33PM (#448603)

        Not a good analogy.

        Suppose humanity is on a small ship sailing around the ocean with no particular destination. Sometimes we try to send messages, which we do by tying a letter to a rock and throwing it into the ocean. Unsurprisingly, there's never been a response. Now we come across an island and decide to throw the letter there. There's no evidence that anyone lives on the island, but it's still orders of magnitude more likely than anything that's happened before, isn't it?

        • (Score: 2) by edIII on Monday January 02 2017, @10:11PM

          by edIII (791) on Monday January 02 2017, @10:11PM (#448664)

          None of those analogies are truly good though. Anything on Earth can actually *support* intelligent life as we know it. If we aren't sending signals to a planet that at least has water, we might as well be sending signals to parts of deep space where we suspect there is only dark matter. It's unlikely that Proxima Centauri B even supports life.

          Although I suspect we may need to dramatically alter our concepts of what intelligence is, and what habitats give rise to them. Considering the vast distances and durations of time involved, it's more likely to win the lottery then to initiate a communication with an intelligent species other than our own.

          Our chances of success are fairly low and if we were serious about it, we should develop a much stronger omnidirectional signal. Then hope like hell whatever else is out there listening respects life differently then we do. If it's life very similar to ours in those terms, then we're fucked.

          --
          Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
          • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 03 2017, @12:05AM

            by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday January 03 2017, @12:05AM (#448707) Journal

            I suspect one reason for the great silence is that there is too much interference and distance to find and recognize intelligent broadcasts. Combine that with a low likelihood of intelligent life being in a say, 100-1000 light year sphere surrounding us, and we get discouraged and presume all civilizations destroying themselves.

            If it's water you want, that is very prevalent. There appears to be a subsurface ocean just about everywhere [wikipedia.org] with at least a plausible chance of supporting life (such as microbes that hitch a ride there on an asteroid, and thus do not need ideal conditions to arise in). That list includes the more familiar names like Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, and Enceladus, as well as TNOs like Orcus, Sedna, Makemake, and Eris as having possible subsurface oceans. There could be hundreds of more TNOs in our solar system with a size comparable to Orcus or Pluto/Eris and a similar watery composition.

            Planets around stars are prevalent. Planets in habitable zones around stars appear to be prevalent [earthsky.org]. If the habitable zone contains gas giants instead of a rocky planet, rocky moons could be considered. 3/4 of Jupiter's Galilean moons have lots of water ice, and we know that a moon can have a dense atmosphere: Titan. Put it all together and it wouldn't be a shock to find 10% or more of stars have a watery habitable rock in the habitable zone.

            Within the next couple of years, we will have TESS [wikipedia.org], JWST [wikipedia.org], and CHEOPS [wikipedia.org]. We will increase our known exoplanet count by an order of magnitude, and be able to characterize their atmospheres (biospheres?) using JWST. Detection of vegetation by examining atmospheres is much more likely than SETI*. Give humanity 5 or 10 more years, and then we'll have a little more reason to despair about not finding life.

            * Once we have found evidence of vegetation, we have a nice target for next-next-next generation space telescopes that have novel mechanisms of deploying a large mirror or something entirely different [nasa.gov] for purposes of direct imaging of exoplanets at high resolution.

            --
            [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @04:22PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @04:22PM (#448544)

    wat

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Megahard on Monday January 02 2017, @04:50PM

      by Megahard (4782) on Monday January 02 2017, @04:50PM (#448558)

      He renounced his membership in the human race? Sometimes I have thought of doing the same.

      • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday January 02 2017, @05:04PM

        by Thexalon (636) on Monday January 02 2017, @05:04PM (#448566)

        I think, like Professor Hubert J Farnsworth, he's just announced that he doesn't want to live on this planet anymore. Or alternately, he's hoping there's intelligent life out in space somewhere because we seem to be fresh out of it on Earth.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @11:12PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @11:12PM (#449130)

        This Douglas Vakoch organism is not only a traitor to his species. He's a traitor to all life on Earth.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by jdavidb on Monday January 02 2017, @04:37PM

    by jdavidb (5690) on Monday January 02 2017, @04:37PM (#448550) Homepage Journal
    METI stands for Messages to ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence.
    --
    ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 02 2017, @05:27PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday January 02 2017, @05:27PM (#448573)

      No longer searching, now they are just transmitting in the blind.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday January 02 2017, @05:30PM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday January 02 2017, @05:30PM (#448575) Journal

        I don't think I even have to mention that many of these METI efforts involve transmitting... tweets.

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
        • (Score: 3, Funny) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday January 02 2017, @08:08PM

          by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday January 02 2017, @08:08PM (#448626) Journal

          many of these METI efforts involve transmitting... tweets.

          Fast-forward a few years, sufficient for round-trip signal. Suddenly, one night at the radio telescope, all the equipment starts lighting up. Once decoded, a booming alien voice comes over the equipment:

          "People of earth! Greetings! We are eager to make contact with someone named 'realDonaldTrump', who apparently is one of the greatest and most intelligent of your species! Please do not send this communication to Mexicans and Muslims, who all seem quite scary. We hope that Ms. Kelly has recovered from 'bleeding out of her whatever', though we've enjoyed Ellen DeGeneres's celebrity selfies. We too wish Bradley had a longer arm, though we also, like 'realDonaldTrump', have tiny hands. Please tell 'realDonaldTrump' that we want to communicate soon. #TinyHandsAcrossTheGalaxy P.S. The dress is obviously White and Gold."

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @05:32PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @05:32PM (#448577)

    "hey, here is food, come eat us"

    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday January 02 2017, @05:54PM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday January 02 2017, @05:54PM (#448584) Journal

      I don't think those extraterrestrials could eat us. Their biology (or more exactly, the biology of their usual food) probably would be sufficiently different from ours that they could not digest us.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @05:55PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @05:55PM (#448586)

        You willing to take that risk? I'm not.

        • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday January 02 2017, @06:01PM

          by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday January 02 2017, @06:01PM (#448588) Journal

          If they come to eat us, they at least won't wipe us from the surface of the planet. Which I'd consider the greater risk by orders of magnitude.

          --
          The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @06:47PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @06:47PM (#448605)

          They aren't going to eat us, any more than you would go to the Moon for a hamburger even if we discovered cows living there. They aren't going to come for our resources either, any more than you would go to the moon to get dirt for your garden. They might be xenophobic and want to attack anyone they meet out of fear, but there's zero chance they'll attack because we have something they want.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @06:52PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @06:52PM (#448606)

            With a cheap enough source of energy, they could come for our resources just like you would use a bag of moon dirt that gently descended to Earth in your garden.

            They could come to eat us, just like you would blow $200 to eat some truffles served on an iPad, or a steak at Trump's hotel.

            • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @07:55PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @07:55PM (#448623)

              You are already assuming that they might attack us for fun rather than for some useful purpose. Which they might, but even that is incredibly unlikely. For one, any civilization that is that violent is probably going to have a hard time with the level of cooperation needed to mount such an operation.

              There is a maximum level of technology that any possible aliens there could have. We know, for instance, that they haven't built a Dyson swarm. We also know that they haven't attacked us yet, which either means they aren't hostile or aren't very dangerous. If they had achieved interstellar flight, they would have already been here, or at least their probes would have. We are, after all, just as close to them as they are to us.

              The only possible way they could be both hostile and dangerous is if:
              * They are very xenophobic, and
              * Intentionally stay very quiet to avoid detection by potentially even more advanced civilizations, and
              * Assume that every other species will feel the same way, and
              * Have enough unity that no one in their own civilization ever sends such messages, and
              * Are willing to conduct a very expensive (and very loud) military operation to try to prevent anyone else from sending messages, and
              * For some reason did not attack during, say, the 17th century, before we had the capability to send interstellar messages and were also a lot less dangerous militarily

              It's a pretty tall order to come up with a way for all these pieces to fit together.

              Most likely, of course, there's just nobody there. At least nobody intelligent.

              • (Score: 2) by inertnet on Monday January 02 2017, @11:22PM

                by inertnet (4071) on Monday January 02 2017, @11:22PM (#448695) Journal

                They've got one thing going for them, they're not humans.

              • (Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:18AM

                by dry (223) on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:18AM (#448788) Journal

                Read Footfall for one take on why and how beings from Alpha Centauri come to Earth to attack and hopefully take over.
                Herd creatures with a surrender instinct fight wars differently and being the second intelligent life to evolve on their planet, have technology handed to them rather then discovering it (the predecessors left lots of directions engraved in boulders). Well done story with realistic aliens based on elephants rather then apes and mostly current technology plus fusion. The aliens having the high ground and dropping rocks is almost enough to win and would be if we fought wars as they do.
                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footfall [wikipedia.org]

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @11:59AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @11:59AM (#448861)

                All green of skin. 800 centuries ago their bodily fluids include the birth of half-breeds. For the fundimental truth and self-determination of the cosmos. For dark is the suede that mows like a harvest.

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by Username on Monday January 02 2017, @06:20PM

    by Username (4557) on Monday January 02 2017, @06:20PM (#448596)

    Haven’t we been sending them messages since the invention of the radio?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @06:28PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @06:28PM (#448600)

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_SETI [wikipedia.org]

      First of all, while trying to synthesize an Interstellar Radio Message (IRM), we should bear in mind that Extraterrestrials will first deal with a physical phenomenon and, only after that, perceive the information. At first, ET's receiving system will detect the radio signal; then, the issue of extraction of the received information and comprehension of the obtained message will arise. Therefore, above all, the Constructor of an IRM should be concerned about the ease of signal determination. In other words, the signal should have maximum openness, which is understood here as an antonym of the term security. This branch of signal synthesis can be named anticryptography.

      [...] Also characteristics of the radio signal such as wavelength, type of polarization, and modulation have to be considered.

      Over galactic distances, the interstellar medium induces some scintillation effects and artificial modulation of electromagnetic signals. This modulation is higher at lower frequencies and is a function of the sky direction. Over large distances, the depth of the modulation can exceed 100%, making any METI signal very difficult to decode.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @06:57PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @06:57PM (#448607)

    When I were a lad, in my teens, I used to look at the start a lot and sometimes I would have a torch (flashlight) with me. Sometimes I'd point it at various stars and think that in many tens, hundreds or thousands of years, the odd photon from the incandescent bulb would reach that star...

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @08:33PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @08:33PM (#448636)

      and you were right.
      but had you no pity for the poor photon?
      it would meet millions of photons going the other way... and it, alone, would go against the crowd. alone.

      you may be a bad person.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @09:20PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @09:20PM (#448650)

        None whatsoever.

  • (Score: 2) by KritonK on Wednesday January 04 2017, @10:40AM

    by KritonK (465) on Wednesday January 04 2017, @10:40AM (#449294)

    Let us say that someone on that planet around Proxima Centauri, having determined that there is a planet around our sun that could possibly harbor life, decides to send a signal to us.

    Would we actually be able to receive it and identify it as a signal? I suspect that, unless someone was actively looking for a signal from that particular direction during the brief time that the signal was broadcast, the answer would be "no".

    The likelihood of their receiving our signal is not going to be greater than our receiving theirs.