The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) - Are We Alone in the Universe?

The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) - Are We Alone in the Universe?

 

Who is out there?  What have they found?

By Space Viz

 

Are we alone in the Universe?  Who is out there?  Scientists around the world are trying to receive extraterrestrial signals.  What do they hope for?  What have they found?  Where is the evolution of human beings headed?

 

The Cosmic Radio Dial

 

290 miles northeast of San Francisco, California, something other worldly is going on.

An array of 350 antennas is being put together at Hat Creek Radio Observatory.  This array made of large radio antennae, resembles the one that Jodi Foster’s character Ellie worked at, in the screen adaptation of  Carl Sagan’s book “Contact”.  Officially it’s called the Allen Telescope Array.

Funded mostly by former Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen at a price of $50 million, the SETI Institute, all these years later, is still hot in pursuit of an alien message beamed our way.

SETI researchers believe an advanced alien civilization attempting to communicate with another species, in this case us, would beam a message into space via radio waves.  The challenge has been to figure out what radio channel they are transmitting on.

It was put forth by Giusseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison in a paper appearing in Nature Magazine, that the most reasonable place to send a message would be near the radio-channel of neutral hydrogen.  Neutral Hydrogen’s cosmic frequency is 1420 mhz on the radio dial.  At that frequency there seems to be a minimum amount of background noise and so they postulated, that would be the best place to send a message.  So for decades, SETI researchers excited by that possibility have been trying to listen in on the cosmic radio dial at or near that radio frequency to hear if there might indeed be a signal from an extra terrestrial civilization beamed in our direction.

 

A Species-to-Species Call

 

During the first 4.5 billion years nothing but silence has emanated from our planet on the cosmic radio dial.  Then, during the past 100 years Earth started broadcasting radio and TV signals which have leaked off our planet and out into space.

It is reasonable to assume that if there were an advanced civilization within 100 light years of Earth (as the radio and TV waves travel at the speed of light) listening for messages, the way we are, they would hear our first broadcasts.  They might think we are still in World War 1 or 2 if they don’t take into account the time it took for the signal to travel there.  It makes you wonder if seeing that might give them the wrong impression (or the right one) of our race.

If they were on the ball and sent out a reply to us, depending on their distance from us, it would take up to 100 years for their reply to reach us.

As co-author of the Cocconi-Morrison paper and MIT physicist Philip Morrison said, “It’s not a person-to-person call.  It’s not a station-to-station call.  It’s a species-to-species call!”

 

Optical SETI

 

Dr. Stuart Kingsley, of the Columbus Optical SETI Observatory, has argued for years that if aliens were transmitting a signal toward Earth, they would certainly try to send the signal through pulsed light beacons because using that method, one could store a lot information and have it travel further with less loss of data than one could using radio waves.

 

His views were found interesting, but due to some hard-nose politics, and a lot of competition for funding, he flew solo on the Optical Search for many years, tirelessly promoting Optical SETI.

His arguments proved to be correct.  “After all” Dr. Kingsley said, “we can see that in the future, robots probing Mars will beam back messages via laser beam and that signal will in turn be broadcast in your home via fiber optic.  The future is clearly photonic!”

Now, nearly two decades later, his advocacy for Optical SETI has paid off.  There are now Optical SETI searches at Harvard, sponsored by the Planetary Society, and at UC Berkeley as well as his own (formerly in Columbus, Ohio now relocated to Bournemouth, United Kingdom).

 

What Have We Found?

 

After several decades of searching it’s fair to ask, “What have we found?”.

The best signal so far came from a former SETI Search Programme at Ohio State University, called “Big Ear”.  The “WOW Signal” was a signal that appeared to come from an extra terrestrial source but didn’t last long enough to be verified by another source.  Several attempts to re-acquire the signal were in vain.  It’s referred to as the “WOW Signal” because the astronomer on duty wrote “WOW” on the paper print-out monitoring the signal.

That’s pretty much it.

Sure there are signals all the time, but unless the observers can verify that the signal came from an off-Earth source, they can’t officially record anything as a confirmed existence of an extraterrestrial signal.

For that reason, searches are taking place all over the world, in both hemispheres.  Some do the key searching, others do the follow ups, if something of interest might be discovered.

So you ask, “After decades, that’s it?”.  Well remember, if the aliens listening to our TV and Radio broadcasts are 60 to 100 years away (and that’s considerably close considering the vastness of space), and if they have a response prepped and ready to send immediately without further pause, then that will take decades to centuries to receive a reply, if they choose to reply.

 

Are They Benevolent?

 

They may be asking the same thing of us Earthlings, especially if the first signals they received from us are that of World War.

They may choose not to make “Contact” with us until we have solved our problems.

Conversely, our military experts might argue, we may choose not to reply if we receive a confirmed signal from them, as we may not know their intentions.  They just may well be hostile.  Some argue that a technologically advanced society would have overcome their petty differences and hostilities.  Has technology helped us overcome our differences or has it only hastened the killing?

It is hoped that the aliens would be able to offer us cures to our rare diseases and have a Galactic Treasure Trove of knowledge at their fingertips (if they have fingers).  Are we so audacious as to hope that they would share that information with us?  Have we proven ourselves worthy of such knowledge?

Regardless of intentions, the SETI researchers are not broadcasting (like our Radio and TV stations) rather, they are listening.

Whether they’ll release the details of a signal detection is another matter.  Are religious institutions and people around the world ready to accept that ‘we are not alone’?  That we were not created in HIS image?

Arthur C. Clarke said, “If after centuries of searching we still find nothing, then we can consider ourselves to be ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’!”

 

Learn More

 

Videos

 

For an excellent introduction on the subject of SETI, watch the film

Contact:  The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence

Streaming video trailer

¡Video disponible en español!  A Spanish version is available 

Contacto: La búsqueda para la inteligencia extraterrestre

Streaming video trailer

“Contact: The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence”, speaks with researchers, authors and scientific experts about the various SETI issues.

The film features eminent science fiction author of “2001: A Space Odyssey” Arthur C. Clarke, MIT physicist Philip Morrison, Gerritt Verschuur, the SETI Institute’s Seth Shostak and Jill Tarter, Jaymie Matthews (UBC), Clive Goodall, Stuart Kingsley (Optical SETI), Bob Dixon (Ohio State University), Harvard’s Paul Horowitz, UC Berkeley’s SERENDIP researchers and many others.

The re-mastered DVD runs 48 minutes.

 

“An excellent introduction to the most awesome quest upon which science has ever embarked - the search for intelligence elsewhere in the Universe.  

The interviews with the astronomers and engineers involved should convince any thoughtful person that the modest sums needed for the enterprise may be the best investment mankind will ever make.”

-Arthur C. Clarke, Chancellor: International Space University

 

“Contact: The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence”, the DVD, is available for purchase through the Space Viz web site at:

http://www.SpaceViz.com

The DVD is also available for purchase from Amazon.com

 

 

Online

 

For more comprehensive information about SETI visit the following links:

 

The SETI Institute http://www.seti.org

SETI at U.C. Berkeley http://seti.berkeley.edu

Columbus Optical SETI http://www.coseti.org

SETI League http://www.setileague.org

SETI@home http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu

Ohio State Big Ear http://www.bigear.org

Optical SETI at Harvard http://seti.harvard.edu/oseti

Project BAMBI http://www.bambi.net

SETI Australia Centre, Southern SERENDIP http://seti.uws.edu.au

SETI Italia http://www.seti-italia.cnr.it

 

A plethora of other material about the SETI issue can be found online.

 

About the Author

—————————————-

Space Viz is a film maker, musician, editor, interviewer and author, based on Earth, with a planet to save.

 

Space Viz’s “Planetary Defense” - nominated for the prestigious 2008 ‘Sir Arthur Clarke’ Award (The British ‘Oscar®’ for Space Achievements) alongside “Ron Howard’s In the Shadow of the Moon”. Fellow nominees include Stephen Hawking and Sir Richard Branson.

 

He has a Science background and a Fine Arts degree.  He is a science buff, an amateur astronomer and speaks at Special ‘Science’ Events throughout the world.  He is often invited to speak (or Key Note Address) to the general public-at-large in a succinct, educational and entertaining way about astronomical phenomena.  His advice is sought after by the local media and press.

 

His special interests and expertise also include dogs (and pets in general); music composition and publishing; and independent film production and distribution.

 

Find out more online at http://www.SpaceViz.com

 

Near Earth Objects (NEOs) - The Cosmic Threat to Civilization’s Survival

Near Earth Objects (NEOs) - The Cosmic Threat to Civilization’s Survival 

By Space Viz

 

What would happen if something the size of a mountain, flying at 26 000 miles per hour (41 843 kilometers per hour), hit the Earth?  Do our Governments have a plan in place to protect us from such a calamitous event?  Judging by the administration’s sluggish response both before and after Hurricane Katrina the likely answer is ‘No’.

 

We live in a busy Solar System with lots of moving parts.  Many of those parts consist of stony-iron materials known as asteroids and many of these rocky bodies have yet to be discovered and could impact with Earth at any time. 

 

There are also many icy bodies, known as Comets.  They live out past the orbits of Neptune.  Any stirring of their orbits, perhaps nudged by gravitational forces of nearby stars can change their trajectories for a visit into the inner Solar System putting them on a potential collision course with Earth, also at any time.

 

Scientists Study Recent Developments

 

In January 2008 there was some news that an asteroid, known as 2007 WD5, might hit Mars.  The resulting impact was projected to be similar in size to Meteor Crater, an impact crater a mile-wide in Arizona, formed in a flash of white light and fireball, when an asteroid struck there 50 000 years ago.

 

Around the same time, another asteroid known as 2007 TU 24 was discovered in November 2007 by the Catalina Sky Survey on October 11, 2007.  Calculations determined it would pass near the Earth, on January 29, 2008, just outside the orbit of the Moon, which is considered very close in astronomical terms.

 

2007 TU 24 is between 150 and 600 meters in diameter.  The average interval between actual Earth impacts for an object this size is estimated to be about 37 000 years.  Radar Observations of 2007 TU 24 were made at the Goldstone, California in late January and early February.  This will permit later 3D shape reconstruction.

 

In July 1994, twenty-one fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed into Jupiter, leaving black and brown blotches on the planet for over a year, each blotch itself, the size of Earth.  Astronomers have yet to witness an asteroid impact with another planet.

 

Therefore the opportunity to witness the 2007 WD5 impact on Mars was exciting to astronomers and scientists who wanted to make measurements of these types of objects as well as calculations and impact scenarios of what might happen should an asteroid, or a comet, impact with the Earth.

 

The Mars impact never took place as the asteroid cruised by without incident; a disappointment to astronomers who lost an opportunity to observe the direct effects of an asteroid impact on a planet similar to Earth.

 

Luckily for us though, the asteroid 2007 TU 24 also missed Earth.  I couldn’t help wondering how we would actually have responded if the scientists had told us that the Earth-bound asteroid was headed directly for us and that, according to their calculations there was no way it was going to miss us!

 

How Worried Should We Be?

 

One of the main problems we have right now is the lack of an effective response.  Even if we knew that an asteroid or comet was headed straight for us, and even if we had plenty of warning ahead of time, what would we do?  Once we detect them we still have to figure out some way to safely and reliably destroy or deflect them.  To date, such methods do not exist in practicum, only in theory.  No missions to prove the ability to move or destroy an asteroid or comet have ever been undertaken by any country.

 

If an asteroid were to hit Earth, impact would likely be in the oceans as Earth is over 70% water.  The effects of such an impact could include Tsunamis, which would be devastating to small Island nations and coastlines on the main land on both sides of the ocean, or could be as devastating as planet-wide environmental collapse if the projectile is large enough to punch through the ocean floor.

 

An asteroid could also hit land, including cities, again causing anywhere from local to global devastation depending on the size of the impactor.  Food chains, transportation, infrastructure could all be leveled with a moderate impact and civilization itself can be jeopardized.

 

A big impact would jeopardize the survival of the entire planet, not just food chains and civilization, by kicking up tones of dust and soot high into the atmosphere, similar to gigantic volcanic eruptions which would block out the sun and change climate, killing off vegetation as temperatures plummet and no access to solar energy for photosynthesis.

 

When looking at the Moon, Mercury, Mars and even the Earth itself, we can see the pock-marks that tell the tale of their respective histories.  As the Moon and Mercury are not subject to the forces of erosion, their battle-worn landscapes bear the scars of countless impact craters displayed in plain view; harsh reminders of the reality of every planet’s life in the brutal environment of space.  These pock-marks should act as a reminder that “It’s not a matter of If an impact will happen, but when!”

 

According to David Morrison at NASA-AMES in an article he wrote in September 1998, (see link below) on average a NEO with about 1 million megatons energy (roughly 2 km in diameter) collides with the Earth once or twice per million years, statistically speaking.  An impact of this size would kill a substantial proportion of the Earth’s population and have a devastating and lasting effect on Earth’s environment.  What such a statistic does not tell you of course is whether the impact will occur one million years from today, or one week from today.  What is interesting to note is that the impact that most scientists believe is responsible for causing the extinction of the dinosaurs occurred 65 million years ago.  That may well make us long overdue for an extinction-level strike.

 

Is Anyone Doing Anything About This Situation?

 

US Military budgets do not include Earth’s protection.  The US military does not even have a mission to worry about it.  The military agenda of all countries is to defend their respective countries’ interests.  To date, NEO’s are not of formal interest to any military.  No country or conglomerate of countries has undertaken the task, officially, to protect the Earth from NEOs.

 

Were an imminent impact to happen, would the government(s) even tell us at all?  We have already determined that governments are not prepared to intercede, intercept and save the day.  In February 2008 the US Air Force shot down an orbiting US Spy Satellite.  The satellite was traveling at near asteroid speeds, at 23 000 miles per hour.  Impressive as that was, who would save Earth from an impending impact?

 

 “Space Guardians” around the world are hunting for these potentially 

hazardous Near Earth Objects.  (That term, Space Guardians, was created by 

myself and based on Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s novel “Rendezvous with Rama” which 

featured an NEO search program called Space Guard.  Sir Arthur C. Clarke very much appreciates that reference.)

 

The major US-based searches include the most productive sky survey, the Catalina Sky Survey, run by Steve Larson, with searches in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.  The remaining searches are all uniquely located in the Northern hemisphere with money provided by NASA.  They include:  the US Air Force operated LINEAR program from Lincoln Laboratories, run by Grant Stokes and NEAT (Near Earth Asteroid Tracking) a JPL run operation.  Spacewatch is yet another NEO search founded by Tom Gehrels and Robert McMillan and run by Robert McMillan, based near Tucson, Arizona.  Finally, the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, has a search called LONEOS (Lowell Observatory Near Earth Object Search) run by Ted Bowell.  There are also countless amateur astronomers around the world that help in tracking the known asteroids (sometimes even finding a few new ones themselves).

 

Is Luck a Sensible Strategy?

 

We know what will happen.  It is inevitable.  We’ve witnessed impacts on other worlds.  Scientists are convinced that it was a Comet that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

 

The big impact at Tunguska in 1908 is the latest major event of its kind on Earth.  Luckily it exploded over an uninhabited part of Siberia and only one person died as a result.  However, the explosion was equal to that at Hiroshima and the trees that were felled for miles around the impact site remain so to this day. 

 

While very few people on Earth consider these very real dangers from Space, thousands of relentless NEO’s traveling silently through the night go on indifferently about their business.

 

Learn More

 

Videos

 

For a thorough understanding of the NEO hazard and what is being done about it, watch the seminal film on this subject, “Planetary Defense”: http://spaceviz.com/documentaries/planetarydefense/planetarydefense.html.

“Planetary Defense” speaks with military, scientific and governmental experts on the various NEO issues.  The film also features eminent science fiction author Sir Arthur C. Clarke and Apollo 9 astronaut, Rusty Schweickart, who will be advising the United Nations about the NEO risk in 2009.

 

“Planetary Defense”, the DVD, is available for purchase through the Space Viz web site at http://www.SpaceViz.com.  The DVD is also available for purchase from Amazon.com.  The film runs 48 minutes and has nearly one hour of Bonus Features in the form of two silent slideshows.
One slideshow shows a collection of asteroids and comets from NASA, JPL and other sources; the other is dedicated to impact sites here on Earth.

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Articles

 

For more information about NEO’s visit http://impact.arc.nasa.gov.  There you will find comprehensive coverage about NEO’s by David Morrison of NASA-AMES.

 

A plethora of other material about the NEO hazard can be found online.

—————————————-

Space Viz is a film maker, musician, editor, interviewer and author, based on Earth, with a planet to save.

 

Space Viz’s “Planetary Defense” - nominated for the prestigious 2008 ‘Sir Arthur Clarke’ Award (The British ‘Oscar®’ for Space Achievements) alongside “Ron Howard’s In the Shadow of the Moon”. Fellow nominees include Stephen Hawking and Sir Richard Branson.

 

He has a Science background and a Fine Arts degree.  He is a science buff, an amateur astronomer and speaks at Special ‘Science’ Events throughout the world.  He is often invited to speak (or Key Note Address) to the general public-at-large in a succinct, educational and entertaining way about astronomical phenomena.  His advice is sought after by the local media and press.

 

His special interests and expertise also include dogs (and pets in general); music composition and publishing; and independent film production and distribution.

 

Find out more online at http://www.SpaceViz.com

 

Space Colonization - Will Space Tourism drive Space Colonization? What’s the timeline?

Space Colonization

Will Space Tourism drive Space Colonization?  What’s the timeline?

By Space Viz

 

NASA is going back to the Moon and eventually to Mars. At least that’s the plan. The steps are to try to live off-world at the International Space Station (as we are currently doing); then to go back to the Moon sometime in the next 12 years and set up a small lunar base; then off to our next destination, Mars.  What is the timeline of these events and what will be the driving forces behind Space Colonization?

 

Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” vision of a beautiful spinning International Space Station clearly has not come to pass by that year.   That vision is a roadmap to what we as a human race will undoubtedly accomplish, potentially in the near future, with the right incentives.  The questions are ‘when’ and ‘what incentives’?

 

If you build it they will come!

 

To get there they need an affordable way.  The X-Prize competition, a $10 million prize won by Space Ship One, was designed to get people to space and back, safely and affordably.  Space Ship One was designed by Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites and funded by Virgin Galactic, owned by Sir Richard Branson.  But where would we go to?

 

Space Tourism

 

Space is very close, only 62 miles, up.  Imagine flying 62 miles and actually leaving Earth.  Space Tourists need a place to go, but where?  A Space Cruise Ship, complete with a casino and a zero-g pool?  A Space Hotel is another obvious choice.  If you are rich, well connected and have the intestinal fortitude, the Russian’s are always willing to add a few Space Tourists to the list of visitors to the International Space Station.

 

In April of 2001, Dennis Tito, an American, became the first fare-paying Space Tourist at a cost of $20 million.  He flew to the International Space Station and remained for 7 days.  His visit was followed by four others; the first African in Space, Mark Shuttleworth (South African/British) in April and May of 2002; Gregory Olsen (American) in October 2005; Anousheh Ansari (Iranian/American) in September 2006; and Charles Simonyi (Hungarian/American) in April 2007.  Other scheduled Space Tourists:  Francisco Navarro-Grau (Peru) is expected to fly in August 2008.  Richard Garriott (American) is expected to fly on Soyuz TMA-2 in October 2008.   Vladimir Gruzdev (Russian) is expected to fly in 2009.  In the vision of Space Travel we get from the film “2001: A Space Odyssey”, the orbiting, glistening, white Space Station is used as a launch site to a Moon colony.  When will we have a Moon Colony?

 

Driving Forces

 

In late 2009, Virgin Galactic hopes to start daily trips for paying customers, into Space aboard their Space Ship Two.  The return flights into low Earth orbit will last just over two hours at a cost of $100 000 per traveler; five minutes of weightlessness included.  They hope to have four flights a day.  As of November 2007, the company had already pre-sold nearly 200 seats.

 

In September 2007, the Japanese launched the Kaguya spacecraft which is mapping the Moon in great detail.  Both the Chinese and Indian governments, in an attempt to demonstrate their space-faring capabilities have publicly announced that they have their eyes set on the Moon.  This in turn has prompted a little Space Race.  Not wanting to have another country gain the high-ground, President Bush announced in 2004, that US probes to the Moon will once again commence in 2008; the International Space Station will be finished in 2010; that Americans will be returning to the Moon by 2020 and intends on establishing a basic colony on the Moon by 2024.  Ultimately, he spoke of going to Mars.

 

Regardless what drives us, Space Tourism or a Space Race, it does seem that a reasonable first place to set up camp would be on the Moon.  It’s relatively close, it’s stable and could be useful for scientific research, and can be mined for fuels, oxygen and hydrogen, which can be used as water and life support and to be used as fuels to launch us further afield.  Mars is the likely next destination.

 

Mars poses different challenges however.  It’s further away which in case of emergency means greater autonomy must be achieved.  That autonomy will be gained from lessons learned by our experiences on the International Space Station and on our future Lunar base.  Unlike the Moon whose day lasts two weeks in the Sun and two weeks in the Dark, Mars has a similar day to that of Earth’s twenty four hours.  Unlike the Moon, Mars also has weather which means everybody can have a very pleasant or a very bad Martian day.  Some targets for colonizing Mars have been set as early as 2037 to 2057.

 

From there, the solar system and the galaxy as a whole will be eventually colonized if we can survive long enough to get all our eggs off of this one basket, Earth!  Survival refers to both terrestrial threats, ourselves, catastrophes and extra terrestrial events such as comet or asteroid impacts.

 

Our civilization needs to live long enough to develop the technologies to be self sustaining and self sufficient if we are to become, as Arthur C. Clarke said, “Guardians of the Galaxy”.

 

Learn More

 

Video

 

For a glimpse into the future, our roadmap to the Moon and Mars, watch the film “Odyssey of Survival”.  It features Sir Arthur C. Clarke (author of “2001: A Space Odyssey”); Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11 astronaut); Gerald Soffen (who headed the NASA Viking Missions to Mars in the 1970’s); and Tobias Owen (a renowned Space Researcher, Scientist and Professor at the University of Hawaii).  The film is narrated by Mark Moidel in English and by Robert Lepage in French.  Odyssey of Survival” runs 48 minutes, has great music and is thoroughly enjoyable as it reviews where we’ve been, when we were there and how we got there.

 

Find out more about the films Odyssey of Survival

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and l’Odyssée de la survie (the French version).

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Online

The X-Prize http://www.xprize.org

 

Space Tourism Society http://www.spacetourismsociety.org/

 

The National Space Society http://www.nss.org/tourism.html

 

 

About the Author

—————————————- 

Space Viz is a film maker, musician, editor, interviewer and author, based on Earth, with a planet to save.

 

Space Viz’s “Planetary Defense” - nominated for the prestigious 2008 ‘Sir Arthur Clarke’ Award (The British ‘Oscar®’ for Space Achievements) alongside “Ron Howard’s In the Shadow of the Moon”. Fellow nominees include Stephen Hawking and Sir Richard Branson.

 

He has a Science background and a Fine Arts degree.  He is a science buff, an amateur astronomer and speaks at Special ‘Science’ Events throughout the world.  He is often invited to speak (or Key Note Address) to the general public-at-large in a succinct, educational and entertaining way about astronomical phenomena.  His advice is sought after by the local media and press.

 

His special interests and expertise also include dogs (and pets in general); music composition and publishing; and independent film production and distribution. 

 

Find out more online at http://www.SpaceViz.com