As David noted below, scientists may — just may — have picked up a signal indicating intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Here is more detail on that story:
The telescope has only observed the signal for about a minute in total, which is not long enough for astronomers to analyse it thoroughly. But, Korpela thinks it unlikely SHGb02+14a is the result of any obvious radio interference or noise, and it does not bear the signature of any known astronomical object.That does not mean that only aliens could have produced it. “It may be a natural phenomenon of a previously undreamed-of kind like I stumbled over,†says Jocelyn Bell Burnell of the University of Bath, UK.
It was Bell Burnell who in 1967 noticed a pulsed radio signal which the research team at the time thought was from extraterrestrials but which turned out to be the first ever sighting of a pulsar.
There are other oddities. For instance, the signal’s frequency is drifting by between eight to 37 hertz per second. “The signal is moving rapidly in frequency and you would expect that to happen if you are looking at a transmitter on a planet that’s rotating very rapidly and where the civilisation is not correcting the transmission for the motion of the planet,†Korpela says.
This does not, however, convince Paul Horowitz, a Harvard University astronomer who looks for alien signals using optical telescopes. He points out that the SETI@home software corrects for any drift in frequency.
The fact that the signal continues to drift after this correction is “fishyâ€, he says. “If [the aliens] are so smart, they’ll adjust their signal for their planet’s motion.â€
The relatively rapid drift of the signal is also puzzling for other reasons. A planet would have to be rotating nearly 40 times faster than Earth to have produced the observed drift; a transmitter on Earth would produce a signal with a drift of about 1.5 hertz per second.
What is more, if telescopes are observing a signal that is drifting in frequency, then each time they look for it they should most likely encounter it at a slightly different frequency. But in the case of SHGb02+14a, every observation has first been made at 1420 megahertz, before it starts drifting. “It just boggles my mind,†Korpela says.
September 2nd, 2004 at 1:14:08 pm
I think it’s really interesting how everyone always assumes that if there are aliens out there that they are more advanced than we are. Horowitz seems to think that the aliens are smart enough to figure it out:
The fact that the signal continues to drift after this correction is “fishy�, he says. “If [the aliens] are so smart, they’ll adjust their signal for their planet’s motion.�
He also assumes that it is impossible for life to exist on a planet where the rotation is 40 times greater than that of Earth.
I say, “so what?” Science fiction has made us believe that other species live in environments similar to our own. The only thing that this tells us is that actors like Leonard Nimoy don’t want to bother trying to be anything other than carbon-based ;-)
But seriously, even though there isn’t enough evidence to say that there is life on another planet, there certainly isn’t enough evidence to say that there isn’t
September 2nd, 2004 at 1:14:31 pm
I think it’s really interesting how everyone always assumes that if there are aliens out there that they are more advanced than we are. Horowitz seems to think that the aliens are smart enough to figure it out:
The fact that the signal continues to drift after this correction is “fishy�, he says. “If [the aliens] are so smart, they’ll adjust their signal for their planet’s motion.�
He also assumes that it is impossible for life to exist on a planet where the rotation is 40 times greater than that of Earth.
I say, “so what?” Science fiction has made us believe that other species live in environments similar to our own. The only thing that this tells us is that actors like Leonard Nimoy don’t want to bother trying to be anything other than carbon-based ;-)
But seriously, even though there isn’t enough evidence to say that there is life on another planet, there certainly isn’t enough evidence to say that there isn’t.
September 2nd, 2004 at 1:43:07 pm
It’s not so much that we assume that alien civilizations must be more advanced than us. It’s just that we assume that ones we come into contact would be. It’s a matter of probability. Our own ability to even detect, say, radio emissions from other worlds is vanishingly recent in terms of cosmic time scales. Therefore, we presume that we’re about as unsophisticated as it is possible to be and still have the ability to send messages to other worlds. Since we are thus working of a field of potential civilizations which are, at most, a few decades less technologically advanced than we are, and potentially millenia more advanced, the probability distribution weights it so that any civilization we are likely to encounter will be much more advanced than our own. This is expecially true for such things as concepts of physical visitation. Simultaneously, the idea may well reverse if/when we begin gallavanting about the cosmos looking for other civilizations.
As for alien life being similar to our own, well, of course we would think it would be. This is because our own world is out entire set of experience in life. It’s very difficult to imagine things completely beyond your own experiences. That’s why, for instance, mythical monsters are generally some sort of weird hybrid of extant creatures. It’s entirely possible that we could encounter life totally different than anything on Earth. But ask yourself this: how would we recognize it as life?
September 2nd, 2004 at 2:00:55 pm
Leonard Nimoy is carbon-based? Really?? :)
Thanks, guys. This is very exciting. / Since last night I’ve been busy trying to determine whether there is intelligent life in Georgia (the signals are fishy :), but this is much more important. :)