- Astronomers now know there was water on Mars at one time. No life forms have yet been discovered there although rovers are still looking. Astronomers have found thousands of planets, solar systems, orbiting other stars. They are studying the atmospheres to see if a life form lives there. And, we have been listening for them to contact us.
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- SETI is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It has been operating for 50 years. Today’s receivers listen to radio frequencies simultaneously monitoring hundreds of millions of channels. What happens if they pick out a signal amongst all that electromagnetic noise?
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- Well actually they do pick out a few dozen signals with every scan of the sky.
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- What happens next?
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- Next, astronomers rely on sophisticated software to perform the tedious task of determining if the signal is man-made of alien?
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- If the signal passes the alien test then a whole series of additional tests are run. If the signal is still a candidate astronomers at other observatories around the globe are asked to verify the detection. This step is designed to rule out equipment bugs, software coding errors, or prank signals.
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- This is all in the first step” “ Carefully verify the signal is truly extraterrestrial.”
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- Next, with positive detection other scientists and the public are informed ( We trust they inform the public. Some fear that it would be kept a secret for fear the public could not handle the news.)
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- Step 3, Seek international approval before responding. ( Some fear the answering may unleash an alien invasion the would destroy us. So, stay hidden.)
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- What happens next would be rush to learn more. A very Large Array telescope that can have a beam with of 5 arc-seconds at 1420 megahertz would be used to pinpoint the star (solar system) transmitting the signal.
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- Careful study of the signal would detect Doppler frequency shifts that would characterize the planet’s atmosphere. Studies would learn the length of the day, the length of a year for the planet. How big the planet was. If it had moons. And, possibly if it had a magnetic field.
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- Of course, the bigger analysis would be: “ What are the aliens saying?”
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- “What’s the message”
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- How would people react? If religion could handle Copernicus, Galileo and Darwin, they should be able to handle E.T.
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- Maybe the message will be incomprehensible to our 3-pound human brains?
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- Maybe it would bring people together in peace and harmony, But, the first pictures of Earth as a small blue dot has no positive effects to our world situation as far as I can tell.
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- We have been sending out radio signals for 90 years. Radio signals from the 1920’ are out there. The 1933 President Roosevelt’s fireside chats have passed the star Regulus. The 1952 TV shows have nearly reached Aldebaran. The star Capella has heard about the 1969 Apollo11 landing on the Moon. The broadcasts about the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center has already passed Sirius and reached Procyon. Our nearest star is Proxima Cerntauri, only 4.3 lightyears away. It has heard what has happened in 2008.
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- Once we get their signal SETI will shut off all world transmissions at that frequency using the World Administration Radio Council of International Telecommunications Union authority.
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- The United Nations would first approve our broadcasts before we respond. Remember it would likely take a decade for the signal to reach the aliens and another decade for them to answer. The next generation would be the discoverers. An announcement will be made in 20 years, stay tuned.
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707-536-3272, Friday, December 14, 2012
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