Another Sweeping Search for Aliens Comes Up Short:
A groundbreaking survey of over 10 million star systems has failed to detect signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.
Astronomers working with the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) radio telescope in Western Australia were unable to detect alien technosignatures while surveying millions of star systems in the Vela constellation, according to new research published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia. The authors of the new study, Chenoa Tremblay from CSIRO and Steven Tingay from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), were hunting for low radio frequencies similar to those produced by our own civilization.
[...] The new search, which included over 10 million stars, was "orders of magnitude" higher than previous MWA surveys, as the authors wrote. From the 30 hours of observation, 17 were "free from imaging artifacts likely caused due to the instrument being actively worked on during the day, while the observations were taken at night."
The null result is not entirely surprising, as the volume of space surveyed by the astronomers is still exceptionally small. In the press release, Tingay said it "was the equivalent of trying to find something in the Earth's oceans but only searching a volume of water equivalent to a large backyard swimming pool."
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday September 12 2020, @02:40PM
When this topic comes up doesn't someone usually say that the radio broadcasts humans have produced are too weak or too directional for another civilization to stand a chance of detecting them?
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(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday September 12 2020, @02:44PM (1 child)
Nobody uses radio. Anyone who's not a complete flarblegloggle knows quantum entanglement's the way to go. Try detecting that, Earthlings!
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Saturday September 12 2020, @04:33PM
Ehm, just look?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday September 12 2020, @02:55PM
It's no fun... [youtube.com]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Saturday September 12 2020, @03:12PM
Artificial radio pollution and cultural spam broadcast is strictly prohibited in this galaxy, enforced.
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 1) by oumuamua on Saturday September 12 2020, @03:25PM (6 children)
This can be done with ordinary rockets going well below light speed in just 90 million years. That's the blink of an eye on cosmic time scales.
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/294051-scientists-simulate-human-colonization-of-the-milky-way [extremetech.com]
So if there were aliens, they would be everywhere already. Ergo, there are no aliens.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday September 12 2020, @03:45PM (3 children)
That simulation must assume a certain success rate for the colonizations. Maybe it's actually much harder for an intelligent species to successfully colonize other planets and reproduce there to the point of being detectable. If almost all the colonizations failed, they wouldn't be everywhere already.
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(Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday September 12 2020, @05:41PM (2 children)
It's also possible that aliens really are everywhere, and we just don't realize it.
(Score: 1) by gmby on Saturday September 12 2020, @08:00PM (1 child)
ahem.... Maybe they have visited here and we just don't listen to the people that have seen them and call these people crazies!
Bye
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 13 2020, @11:25PM
Maybe, but the good money is on the "crazy" side.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday September 12 2020, @10:01PM (1 child)
The contest, by its very nature, makes a lot of assumptions. While we’ve detected thousands of exoplanets, most of them are too large, hot, or cold for human life. We lack the technology to spot most Earth-like planets, so there aren’t any worlds we know to be colonizable. Therefore, the contest used a collection of 100,000 hypothetical habitable star systems spread around the Milky Way,
"""
So that's not the Milky Way then.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday September 13 2020, @12:18AM
That is mostly because the large worlds are the easiest to detect with current technology. The Keppler mission also found many smaller Earth sized worlds around other stars, while most of them outside those stars Goldilocks zones they were there. There is also the assumption that any life that is out there is going to be like Earth's. There are other compounds that can take the place of water that are liquid at much lower temperatures than 0 Celsius even just adding salts to water you can get liquid water at temperatures that would turn a Human into a Popsicle in seconds.
Just from Earth we have seen that Life finds a way, Anywhere there is liquid water and usable energy we find life. Just from that we should expect the Universe to be teaming with living worlds.
But the real question we need to answer is does intelligence find a way as well?
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday September 12 2020, @03:50PM (6 children)
So as per usual then when this topic comes up -- either the aliens are to alien for us to even comprehend them and their existence, they don't exists or we are the only once left or we are at the peak of evolution as far as the universe is concerned and everyone else are just knuckle dragging troglodytes compared to us. Yet they always assume they are out there and that they are more advanced then us. If they are so advanced then basically we are probably on the equivalent of ants to them and we are not that interesting.
Then sure there is that whole aspect of the universe is big and etc. But one would think that eventually we'll find something that isn't just a reoccurring natural phenomenon or an equipment malfunction. Which I guess is where the conspiracies comes in ... They fill the void between the probable and the provable.
Is the earths ocean analogy a good one tho? Perhaps you should be more selective as where or what swimming pool of water you fill and looking and not just take any old pool cause it was around and accessible.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 12 2020, @04:02PM
Humans are the aliens. Ever notice that they don't fit in with the rest of the planet and need all sorts of artificial fur, claws, etc to survive?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 12 2020, @04:10PM (4 children)
If the aliens were less advanced than us, we wouldn't be able to detect them. We've only had radio for a hundred years, after all, only a tiny fraction of our species' overall existence.
The ocean analogy is a pretty good one, I think. We live in the most habitable part of the galaxy (free of supernovae and gravitational disturbances, but with plenty of planet-forming material). Our part of the galaxy isn't analogous to the icy water underneath the North Pole, or the darkness at the bottom of the deep trenches, but a comfortably warm, nicely lit continental shelf. And, obviously, that's also where we're looking.
If you filled a pool with water from that part of the ocean, not only would it be guaranteed to be full of life, you'd stand a good chance of catching some really obvious life, like a fish.
The question isn't if we're alone, but why we're alone.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 12 2020, @04:54PM (3 children)
I never understood the Fermi Paradox. Inverse-square makes it pretty damn hard to detect anything that isn't putting out cosmic-scale energy, so I have never understood why people think we are alone.
My money is on the fact that the galaxy is teeming with life all along the intelligence scale, but obvious colonization hasn't happened because space is so freaking big, and unless relativity is incorrect, there is no way around the fact that you can't make it to another star. People liken it to setting off in boats in the 15th century, but even then the people setting off had the expectation of getting to the destination in a reasonable amount of time. They weren't getting on the ship thinking that maybe their grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren will be the ones getting to the destination.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 12 2020, @11:36PM (2 children)
Even if technological life doesn't travel to other stars, they'll still eventually build a Dyson swarm or some other sort of megastructure around their home star. We could detect that even if they didn't transmit anything. Remember Tabby's Star? That turned out to be a natural phenomenon, but it looked a little like a Dyson swarm, and we spotted it from 1500 light years without much trouble.
But I find the idea that it's too hard to travel to other stars to be short-sighted. It would take less than 50 years to reach Alpha Centauri at 10% of light speed, which would be attainable with ambitious use of 21st century technology. The pyramid at Chichen Itza took 400 years to build, several cathedrals took a century or two. And that's assuming that all possible aliens are as impatient as humans. If the galaxy were full of civilizations, it's likely that there would be one that happened to be more patient, so that 50, or even 500 years of travel time wouldn't be much of a deterrent. Cryogenic hibernation is probably within the realm of 22nd or 23rd century technology, which would make trips of a thousand years or longer practical.
Traveling between stars isn't easy... but it's far from impossible! Humanity will be doing it in a few centuries, assuming we don't kill ourselves first.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday September 12 2020, @11:46PM
If you can do that at observable at light-years distances, you have enough energy and materials to explore your galactic neighborhood.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 13 2020, @11:23PM
Fait accompli!
(Score: 2) by Revek on Saturday September 12 2020, @04:18PM (3 children)
I would like to know from how far away we could detect any use of tech on or around earth. We are looking for others but do we have the actual ability to detect a type 0 civilization.
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 12 2020, @06:52PM (1 child)
Sure, they can detect what our atmosphere is composed of and note the rapid rise in CO2.
Then conclude: there is life but it’s not intelligent
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday September 12 2020, @10:06PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 13 2020, @04:02PM
We would only be able to detect ourown technology from less than ten light years away. Most SETI projects assume that the aliens we are looking for have some sort of beacon we can pick up.
That doesn't mean that we wouldn't be able to detect life, though. We're getting better at detecting the atmospheric composition of exoplanets, and would be able to detect life indirectly out to a hundred light years or two, if conditions were right.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 12 2020, @05:55PM
There are plenty of illegal aliens to be found in Yakima, WA.