Search for aliens ramps up

[space otter]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/search-for-aliens-started-by-zuckerberg-hawking-ramps-up/ar-AAwTJAG?li=BBnbfcL

Search for aliens started by Zuckerberg, Hawking ramps up
Eric Mack  2 hrs ago

The Breakthrough Listen initiative,
https://www.cnet.com/news/stephen-hawking-backs-100-million-effort-to-find-aliens/#ftag=MSF491fea7
an effort backed Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to find signs of alien intelligence, just got way better hearing aids.

The project, which also had support from legendary physicist Steven Hawking, has begun a new push to survey millions of stars in the Milky Way for signals picked up by extraterrestrial technology. The expansion takes advantage of a hardware upgrade at the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia that lets astronomers scan larger areas of the sky quickly and in more detail.
https://www.cnet.com/news/parkes-observatory-extraterrestrial-messages-or-microwave-noodles/#ftag=MSF491fea7



The Listen project has been using the Parkes telescope for observations over the past year and a half, but had been limited to targeting just a small sample of stars within a relatively short distance from Earth.

The new hardware will allow the system to process 130 gigabits per second of observational data from deep space. The project is signed up for 1,500 hours of observation time with the Parkes telescope for 2018, which could result in the collection of almost 100 petabytes of raw data (that's over 5 million HD movies).

All that data will then be archived, open sourced, analyzed and searched for signs of E.T. phoning home ... or anyplace else.

"With these new capabilities ... we are scanning our galaxy in unprecedented detail," project scientist Danny Price from UC Berkeley said in a statement. "By trawling through these huge datasets for signatures of technological civilizations, we hope to uncover evidence that our planet, among the hundreds of billions in our galaxy, is not the only where intelligent life has arisen."   

Breakthrough Listen is a $100 million effort to search the Milky Way and nearby galaxies for evidence of advanced civilizations and technology.  It was launched in 2015 by Zuckerberg, Russian billionaire Yuri Milner and the late Hawking.

The project has already looked into mysterious signals called "fast radio bursts," odd blips from a distant star system and checked that the first interstellar object to visit our solar system wasn't actually an alien ship of some sort (no signs of life were detected).
https://www.cnet.com/news/aliens-sci-fi-seti-breakthrough-listen-107-piscium/#ftag=MSF491fea7

Breakthrough Listen hasn't picked up on any alien signals just yet, but perhaps that will change now that its "ear" just became much bigger and more sensitive.

[Ellirium113]

Why do they even bother with this? The only thing this might do is show them where to start the next war.

[space otter]

i guess you hafta do something with all that money

[zorgon]

The expansion takes advantage of a hardware upgrade at the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia that lets astronomers scan larger areas of the sky quickly and in more detail.

Radio?  Bwahahahahaha  oh the silly FOOLS 

Breakthrough Listen hasn't picked up on any alien signals just yet, but perhaps that will change now that its "ear" just became much bigger and more sensitive.

No surprise there LOL

Okay let's talk RADIO 

Number One:

Hu-mons developed Radio about a hundred years ago  A guy by the name of Nikola Tesla invented it and used it to broadcast his 'free energy'... Then a guy named Marconi stole his work and patented it.  Today tesla has been given due credit, but way to late for him to cash in on it...

Okay so  RADIO  It has only been about the last 60 years oe so that radio waves have been powerful enough to carry modulation that can be recognized beyond the solar system as anything but back ground noise.  And to get really far out you need a powerful directed beam, because the modulation (data carried on that radio wave that gives us sound and speech) deteriorates at a know rate.

RADIO waves travel at the speed of light.   That means that any Alien at the 60 light year distance form Earth is JUST NOW listening to WWII broadcasts  and any planets beyond that distance are getting mostly static...

The number of Stars within 50 light years of Earth is not very many... and those have few planets around them (We have Kepler telescope now )

So basically anyone beyond 100 light years ( a short hop as far as space goes) HASN'T EVEN HEARD US YET

This is a map of all the stars within 50 Light Years of Earth...




A few years ago we sent a powerful directed radio beam with messages to the Gliese 581 System. That system is 20.5 light years away with 4 earth size planets withing the habitable zone

Here is the Gliese 581 System



Now Ii already posted this before but I can repeat...

So unless they are already in the vicinity, no one knows we are here 

Hello from Earth....
A few years ago they sent a powerful signal to Gliese System  using the Puerto Rico dish...  the website is already down but still on the Wayback Machine  That signal will take another 14 YEARS 215 DAYS to get there and that system is only 20.5 LY away ( I think the counter is still active on Wayback machine)

https://web.archive.org/web/20090815094007/http://www.hellofromearth.net/gliese581d/links/index.htm

The TOP message? 

Hello Gliese 581d inhabitant. Can you help us humans travel through space and become smart like you. Please do not eat us we are a friendly race.
Angus Pigott
Canberra, Australia

https://web.archive.org/web/20120508162320/http://www.hellofromearth.net/gliese581d/topmessages/index.htm

[zorgon]

Number Two

Any advance race that is travelling interplanetary space would require Faster than Light drive, no natter what type, or they would need generations to just travel nearby stars.

So if you have an FTL ship, you CANNOT use radio as communication with home because it is to slow. If your ship is a mere 1 light year from home, that message would take a year to get back  and another year to get an answer.

Now if SETI and Zuckerberg were scanning LEO for ship to ship messages then MAYBE

But Star Trek showed us sub space communication...  basically signals that travel FTL or via worm holes. You would need that to communicate at those warp speeds

Now forget the Alien Spaceships for now... lets say we are looking for a technology that is still using radio... That would mean they are on about the same level as we are...

Okay so  We scan the skies and get a BLIP... we call it the WOW signal...   might be an Alien civilization...

But that signal was caught on an automatic feed... and not seen until they looked at the print outs

THIS is what it looked like:

Wow! signal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Wow! signal represented as "6EQUJ5". The original printout with Ehman's handwritten exclamation is preserved by Ohio History Connection.

The Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal received on August 15, 1977, by Ohio State University's Big Ear radio telescope in the United States, then used to support the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The signal appeared to come from the constellation Sagittarius and bore the expected hallmarks of extraterrestrial origin.

Astronomer Jerry R. Ehman discovered the anomaly a few days later while reviewing the recorded data. He was so impressed by the result that he circled the reading on the computer printout and wrote the comment Wow! on its side, leading to the event's widely used name.

The entire signal sequence lasted for the full 72-second window during which Big Ear was able to observe it, but has not been detected since, despite several subsequent attempts by Ehman and others. Many hypotheses have been advanced on the origin of the emission, including natural and man-made sources, but none of them adequately explains the result. The Wow! signal remains the strongest candidate for an alien radio transmission ever detected.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal


Okay so we got a blip...  now we have to find it...  so we point the radio telescope to the last know spot we caught it... but here is the problem.

The Earth is not stationary  and neither is the source of the signal.  In fact but we and the source are moving at several MILLION mph...  I did a paper on this on Livingmoon... it was actually used by a couple universities

The Secrets of the Universe
What is the Speed of the Earth?
http://www.thelivingmoon.com/41pegasus/02files/Speed_of_Earth.html

Why is this of importance?

Why is this of importance? For any discussion on the posibility or the probabiliy of space flight dealing with interstellar flight, it is necessary to have this data.

Imagine for a moment that you have a faster than light or warp capable star ship...

Considering the speed at which the Earth moves, even a short mission away from Earth would result in the planet being millions of miles away from the point of origin at the time you left. Nasa calculations to reach a simple point like the Moon require enormous calculations and pin point accuracy. Any small error left uncompensated would result in Astronauts missing the Earth on return.

Motion, Speed and Direction of Travel of Earth Through Space
Or

"How the Hell Do I Calculate the Way Home"
A study by R. Schmidt July 21, 2006

Disclaimer:The following figures are approximate values for demonstartion only! Please DO NOT use them to calculate actual flight paths. We are not responsible for people getting "Lost in Space".

Consider yourself sitting at your computer on a chair...How fast are you moving?

1. The Earth "wobbles" on its polar axis.  This motion is not relevant (IMO) to the calculations needed to return to earth from interstellar space as it is an "in situ" motion, but it exists.

2. The Earth revolves {spins} on its axis. For these calculations we will use the equator with a circumference of approx. 25,000 miles. One rotation of Earth is approx. 24 hours. Again this is "in situ" motion so not relevant to space travel, but adds to our "stationary chair" model
25000/24 =1041.7 MPH

3. The Earth is orbiting the Sun once a year. The circumference of the Earth's orbit is approx.  607.6  million miles {or 940 million kilometers}. One year is approx. 365 days
365 days X 24 = 8760 hours
607,600,000/8760 = 69,360.73 MPH

So far we have basically 3 Directions of Motion {Wobble, Spin and Orbit} and a combined speed of 1041.70 + 69,360.73 = 70,402.43 MPH for a person sitting in a chair at the Equator. 
{Note: We will do the actual vector calculations at the end}

The following source gives more detail and a more precise calculation based on your latitude and more exact figures. Anyone dizzy yet? A little motion sickness perhaps?

When you take into account the three-dimensional picture of the Sun's movement through our Milky Way Galaxy, things get very complicated.

4. The sun {and hence the solar system} is moving towards the constellation Hercules, namely to the star Lambda Herculis at 12 miles per second {or 20 kilometers per second} which is 43,200 MPH

5. The Solar system is also moving upwards, at 90 degrees to the plane of the Milky Way, at 4.34 miles per second or 15,624 MPH. But we are actually leaving the Galaxy, out about 50 light years now and will be moving out to 250 light years before it reverses. Details of the mechanics of this are explained in the link below. We also crossed the Galactic plane 2 million years ago.

6. The Solar system is orbiting around the Galaxy at an "estimated" speed of 124 miles per second {or 200 kilometers per second} which is 446,400 MPH. The way that figure has been calculated can be found at the link below.

This is where finding our way home becomes difficult, as we do NOT have an actual true figure for this calculation. The further out we go, taking into account the various motions and speed, the more difficult it becomes to get precise calculations ergo the more room for error. Until we can actually go and measure the distances, a "best guess" is all we have. Over the past few decades these values have been revised several times, and are constantly being added to today.

From an Astronomer's point of view  this is not a problem, as they are merely observing from Earth and can fix their calculations when they get new data... no harm done... just reprint the maps.

BUT from a spaceship pilot point of view...touring just within our own galaxy... the problems are enormous.

From a navigator's point of view, we can leave out the "wobble" and the Earth's rotation as those movements are "in place". For later calculations we could also leave out the Earth orbiting the Sun, because if we can make it back to the Sun, I am sure we can locate Earth.

So our "armchair Astronaut" is now moving through 6 different directions and a combined speed of approximately 574,585 MPH

  69,361 MPH Spin and Orbit
  43,200 MPH Towards Lambda Herculis
  15,624 MPH Perpendicular to Galactic Plane
446,400 MPH Orbiting the Galactic Center {or Galactic Spin Rate}
-------------------
574,585 MPH Speed of Earth within Our Galaxy

So for every hour you are away from the solar system, your planet is moving half a million miles, and in several directions...

Now if you want to leave the galaxy add another 1,339,200 MPH to the calculations. This is the speed the galaxy is moving through the universe. But THEN you really get into difficulties pin pointing you reference point. Details can be found here...

So while we are zooming around the Galaxy at these speeds, so is the source of that Wow Signal... and we have NO WAY of knowing in which direction(s)

Finding that blip again is worse than looking for a needle in a haystack...  And depending HOW FAR that signal traveled, it may have left that source a million years ago

So you all know that the Planets revolve around the Sun in neat little circular orbits, yes?  Well from a certain point of view that is correct... however if you were to view the solar system from outside the galaxy it would look more like the following video.  Now this video doesn't include ALL the above mentioned speeds and motions (He did use my paper as reference) but it is close enough to get the idea

Imagine being on a train moving 100 mph in one direction You are tossing a ball back and forth in the train... seems normal because you , the ball and the air in the train are going 100 mph too.  But to someone outside watching that ball it looks different as he sees the relative motions, so to that observer the ball never travels backwards



Updated version

[zorgon]

Number Three

Since radio waves DO travel at the speed of light, that means any signal we might get will be long in the PAST. Unless the star system is withing 50 light years it may have left the source THOUSANDS of years ago, maybe even Millions and that race might no exist anymore.

Consider Hu-mons have only been around for a 100,000 years or so and only the last few thousand were we intelligent enough for space

So Radio to see for Aliens is worthless... at best

Dr Ragbir Bhathal  of Optical SETI

Astrophysicist Ragbir Bhathal at the University of Western Sydney discovered a "suspicious" laser-like signal coming from the southern constellation Tucanae during a SETI sweep. Bhathal is still investigating the signal and scanning the coordinates for a repeat detection.

We covered this at ATS when there was confusion as to where the signal came from.  See our page beloe. Dr Ragbir wrote me back and gave me a copy of the signal blip  LASER  not radio (though we still have the same speed issues... and it was like a flash in the dark... never repeated

The Signal



LASER like Signal Discovered
http://www.thelivingmoon.com/43ancients/02files/SETI_LASER_like_Signal_Discovered.html