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Humanity will detect aliens by 2040, researcher says...
turks1
Member Posts: 1 Arc User
Intelligent extraterrestrial beings are out there, and we'll be meeting them shortly, perhaps within the next 25 years, according to one scientist.
A researcher for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence says humanity will detect aliens by the year 2040, LiveScience.com reports.
"I think we'll find E.T. within two dozen years using these sorts of experiments."
- SETI?s Seth Shostak
That's because, by then, astronomers will have scanned enough star systems to detect alien-produced electromagnetic signals.
"I think we'll find E.T. within two dozen years using these sorts of experiments," SETI?s Seth Shostak said during a Feb. 6 discussion at the 2014 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts symposium at Stanford University. "Instead of looking at a few thousand star systems, which is the tally so far, we will have looked at maybe a million star systems' by 2040," he said.
Part of Shostak's confidence is based on progress made by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope, which has turned up evidence that the Milky Way galaxy is packed with worlds capable of supporting life as we know it.
Shostak believes one in five stars has at least one planet where life might be possible, a "fantastically large percentage" that means there are potentially tens of billions of Earth-like worlds in the galaxy.
And if, on some of those worlds, intelligent life exists, then they're probably doing what we're doing, Shostak said, sending out radio transmissions as they listen, patiently and alertly, for someone to make contact with them.
A researcher for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence says humanity will detect aliens by the year 2040, LiveScience.com reports.
"I think we'll find E.T. within two dozen years using these sorts of experiments."
- SETI?s Seth Shostak
That's because, by then, astronomers will have scanned enough star systems to detect alien-produced electromagnetic signals.
"I think we'll find E.T. within two dozen years using these sorts of experiments," SETI?s Seth Shostak said during a Feb. 6 discussion at the 2014 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts symposium at Stanford University. "Instead of looking at a few thousand star systems, which is the tally so far, we will have looked at maybe a million star systems' by 2040," he said.
Part of Shostak's confidence is based on progress made by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope, which has turned up evidence that the Milky Way galaxy is packed with worlds capable of supporting life as we know it.
Shostak believes one in five stars has at least one planet where life might be possible, a "fantastically large percentage" that means there are potentially tens of billions of Earth-like worlds in the galaxy.
And if, on some of those worlds, intelligent life exists, then they're probably doing what we're doing, Shostak said, sending out radio transmissions as they listen, patiently and alertly, for someone to make contact with them.
I'm a lover not a fighter. But I'm also a fighter so don't get any ideas...
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I'll get the bug spray and alien invasion action plan.
Someone find Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. :P
In all seriousness, a 1-in-5 chance that a star system will have 1 or more life-sustaining planets does not equal a 1-in-5 chance that a star system will have extraterrestrial life on a planet within it. And even so, the odds of them being at the same level as us technologically are pretty slim. To a telescope, a civilisation at our level of technology would be seen to be at least 30 years behind us... and that's assuming the planet in question is around Alpha Centauri, which is unlikely.
I'm not saying it isn't possible, but it would be difficult to achieve.
Coupled with that the fact that any message we send to them wouldn't be received for at least x years (where x=distance in LY) and the language barrier... even if we did make contact it would take decades or longer to be able to communicate with or understand each other.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
going even further on the point of motivations, not even we humans can understand each other which ends up in civil war in syria, oil companies stamping out any real challenge to all this wasteful emissions and this supposed "myth" surrounding climate change, snowden leaking nsa's dirty secrets with russian help, assange stuck in ecuador after leaking all those wires. terrorist activities and well a whole range of other reasons which even in ten forward could break rules about this stuff, so the example is made as far as i can take it. if we cant even understand each other and solve our own issues, imagine how disasterous it could be if alien contact was made!
then there is the arrogance of the idea of 2040 about making contact, when contact is made, be it now or thousands of years from now, we do not know and our tech is no where near advanced enough to explore beyond our solar system, we can only guess what we see is accurate.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
In my opinion, yes...
CM
your assuming from a human view point of what we consider a habitable planet and star systems, but aliens could live in space and not need planets, or cities. other aliens could live in gas giants and could be invisible to us from our eyes. the point is you cant make that assumption because in truth we have no idea what to expect.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
The article says that we will be able to detect aliens by 2040 (which I doubt), not making contact by 2040.
Also, most of those examples you mentioned have nothing to do with understanding. Syria is about greed, oil is about greed and convenience, NSA is about fear (and Russia have only given Snowden sanctuary. I wouldn't call that 'with Russia's help', especially since half his leaks were made in Chinese territory) and terrorism is about religious extremism and political reformation and equality, not understanding. Humans understand each other very well thanks to the UN - we just can't let go of our differences. When that changes, the world will be a much better place.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
Now, saying I'd like to make contact with extraterrestrial intelligences by 2040, or even that I think it possible, is one thing, and I'll gladly cop to both positions. However, stating flat-out that it's going to happen is fortune-telling, not science.
Science is about making assumptions based on what we know and then challenging those assumptions. As far as we know, alien life has to evolve on a planet or other natural celestial body. However, there are no other prerequisites we know of other than a form of light for photosynthesis of plantlife and heat for bacterial cultivation. For example, microbiotic life could exist on Mars from what we've seen on Earth. However, until we know more, it seems unlikely that even microbiotic life could exist on Mercury because of the extreme heat.
My point is, scientists have to make assumptions to further science and then challenge them to further it more. You can't just say "everything's possible", because, by that logic, man could jump into space while carrying a watermelon on a tortoise. There has to be an assumption in order to prove that assumption wrong. That's why we have theories and hypotheses.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
Again, the article isn't saying we'll make contact by 2040, it's saying we'll be able to detect aliens by 2040.
BTW, OP, do you have a link to that article so we can read it for ourselves?
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
your trying to reason it out which is my point, you suspect but no proof to confirm. so it is about understanding in the end, regardless of what you wrote after this bit.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Interestingly, it looks like we'll be able to detect plant life fairly soon. HD 189773b definitely doesn't have life, but it was the first time where we put together all the pieces we'd need to determine if a planet has extensive photosynthetic life. We know it's color, we know its atmospheric content, and we can infer quite a bit about what kind of weather it has.
Snowing glass shards from silicon clouds is about as far as you can get from evidence of life, but damn does it sound cool. But if we did all that to Earth, we'd have a pretty good smoking gun for photosynthesis.
That's a pretty ballsy statement to make - "we will make contact with aliens within 25 years."
I'm pretty sure that it'd be more accurate to say "we will be able to make contact with aliens in around 25 or so years."
Not until we have a large enough military force to conquer them.
That's not the real question here.
The above quote is the indicator to the real question: Even if we make contact with another species, is it worth it to them to respond? Let's not kid ourselves here, we're nowhere close to being culturally tolerant enough to be the Federation and I doubt we will be in 26 years. Any species that looks at us now would wonder how a race that hates itself so viciously could ever be accepting of an entire separate species or even think about peace period. There's a reason why, in Star Trek, the Ferengi are the allegory of modern 21st century humans.
-Leonard Nimoy, RIP
Life isnt Star Trek. Chances are they will be just as flaky as us.
If they are more advanced then we most likely will be toast. Advanced does not mean peaceful.
R.I.P
The reason I put it up here is because I love science and I have often wondered how our entire planet might change if or when we find out we're not alone. Will the US Givernment, for example, then make NASA's budget larger?
Only if NASA allows the Government to outfit our space shuttles with weaponry.
-Leonard Nimoy, RIP
Yeah, and in 1969 - many predicted we'd land a man on Mars by 2000. If we ever do make contact with extraterrestrial life it''ll happen when it happens (and I'd love to see peaceful contact before I die myself.)
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I was disappointed to learn that, too - I liked the idea that Earth was protected by a ten-lightyear-thick shell of disco music...
Really though if aliens were advanced enough to be able to travel here, we would be far too insignificant for them to want to have anything to do with us. There are so many other planets they can go to also that have more resources then Earth so they wouldn't need to come here for that reason either.
My character Tsin'xing
Indeed. You only have to look at the colonial expansion eras of Great Britain to see...
Oh... you were joking...
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
There are far better sources of slave labor than us. We are pretty much defective products when it comes to slave labor or at least North Americans are.
I tend to side with Hawking in this one. We (humanity) have nothing to offer a hypothetical stellar community. We barely survived going to the moon. We have a history of botched low orbit space flights. Our major breakthroughs as of the present involve sending remote controlled toys with science equipment onto Mars.
What do we have to offer aliens that would not invariably harm us in some way?
Is it food? We offer aliens food (provided they'll want to visit us in order to eat), and they'll either eat us or they'll exhaust our food supply and overstay their welcome. We can't even feed our own global population even if we have the ability to.
Is it medicine? Outside of the first world countries, we still have polio and other diseases that should have been conquered long ago. We aren't mature enough to offer them anything.
Is it hospitality? We're our own worst enemies. We exist to destroy and consume. Nothing more.
Is it resources? If they're after our resources, that's resources they will take from our planet to fulfill their own race's survival. Provided they travel vast interstellar distances, that is a lot of fuel/food/etc. they would need, and if they come here -- they aren't going to ask nicely for it. They will simply take it as the means to an end because they know they are the superior race.
Is the question, "Are we alone out here?" really that important as compared to the question, "Are we capable of continued existance on our own planet?"
My answer is no. Aliens belong in outer space. Maybe if we shake our nasty habits from a global standpoint we can look to the stars, but we can barely communicate to each other without invoking war or hard feelings. What makes us think we'd fare better against a technologically superior race?