SETI Chief Astronomer: "Humans Predicted to Make Contact with an Extraterrestrial Civilization Within Two Decades"--A Galaxy Classic

"That's 500 billion planets out there, and bear in mind there are 100 billion other galaxies. To think this [the Earth] is the only place where anything interesting is happening, you have got to be really audacious to take that point of view."

Seth Shostak, SETI senior astronomer

 

Some leading astronomers are quite confident that mankind will make contact with intelligent alien life within two decades. The search for extraterrestrial life will leap forward next year when NASA launches the Kepler space telescope. The instrument will be constantly scanning the same 100,000 stars over its four-year mission with the exciting objective of discovering Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones around suns.

This will allow SETI to home in on where the odds of life are possibly greatest. Currently, SETI’s mission to find life on other planets is like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. But now, whenever Kepler identifies planets most likely to sustain life, the team at SETI will be able to focus in on those solar systems using deep-space listening equipment. This will be a huge upgrade from their present work of randomly scanning the outer reaches of space for some kind of sign or signal. Also, upping the ante, is the recent discovery of Earth-like planets outside our solar system, which has led astrophysicists to conclude that Earth-like planets are likely relatively common in our galaxy.

"Everything has caused us to become more optimistic," said American astrophysicist Dr Frank Drake in a recent BBC documentary. "We really believe that in the next 20 years or so, we are going to learn a great deal more about life beyond Earth and very likely we will have detected that life and perhaps even intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy."

However, some astrophysicists have warned that we humans may be blinded by our familiarity with carbon and Earthlike conditions. In other words, what we’re looking for may not even lie in our version of a “sweet spot”. After all, even here on Earth, one species “sweet spot” is another’s species worst nightmare. In any case, it is not beyond the realm of feasibility that our first encounter with extraterrestrial life will not be a solely carbon-based occasion.

Alternative biochemists speculate that there are several atoms and solvents that could potentially spawn life. Because carbon has worked for the conditions on Earth, we speculate that the same must be true throughout the universe. In reality, there are many elements that could potentially do the trick. Even counter-intuitive elements such as arsenic may be capable of supporting life under the right conditions. Even on Earth some marine algae incorporate arsenic into complex organic molecules such as arsenosugars and arsenobetaines. Several other small life forms use arsenic to generate energy and facilitate growth. Chlorine and sulfur are also possible elemental replacements for carbon. Sulfur is capably of forming long-chain molecules like carbon. Some terrestrial bacteria have already been discovered to survive on sulfur rather than oxygen, by reducing sulfur to hydrogen sulfide.

Nitrogen and phosphorus could also potentially form biochemical molecules. Phosphorus is similar to carbon in that it can form long chain molecules on its own, which would conceivably allow for formation of complex macromolecules. When combined with nitrogen, it can create quite a wide range of molecules, including rings.

So what about water? Isn’t at least water essential to life? Not necessarily. Ammonia, for example, has many of the same properties as water. An ammonia or ammonia-water mixture stays liquid at much colder temperatures than plain water. Such biochemistries may exist outside the conventional water-based "habitability zone". One example of such a location would be right here in our own solar system on Saturn's largest moon Titan.

Hydrogen fluoride methanol, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen chloride, and formamide have all been suggested as suitable solvents that could theoretically support alternative biochemistry. All of these “water replacements” have pros and cons when considered in our terrestrial environment. What needs to be considered is that with a radically different environment, comes radically different reactions. Water and carbon might be the very last things capable of supporting life in some extreme planetary conditions.

At any rate, the odds of there being some type of life somewhere out there are good. As for intelligent life, well, that will depend on the definition of intelligence. There are a lot of other intelligent species here on Earth besides humans, that we don’t generally regard as such. In spite of many Star Trek episodes to the contrary, the odds of alien life forms having evolved to talk, look and act exactly like super hot humans are slim to none. If life is out there, it will have evolved according to it’s particular niche in the universe and will likely be quite foreign to us in the way it looks, communicates and thinks. We might not even be able to recognize hypothetical life forms as alive in the sense that we understand life. In fact, it would be more “miraculous” if we could effectively communicate with extraterrestrial life than to find that it exists. From that perspective, even if there are other life forms out there, we’d still be alone in the universe. Of course, that doesn’t mean we shouldn't look for the answers.

 
Posted by Rebecca Sato.

 

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Related Galaxy posts:

Michio Kaku on Extraterrestrial Civilizations: "How Advanced Could They Possibly Be?"
GAIA -Mapping the Family Tree of the Milky Way
The "Hubble Effect" -A Galaxy Insight
Stanley Kubrick & the Mythology of Extraterrestrial Life -A Galaxy Insight
"The Great Silence" -A Galaxy Insight
New Technologies & the Search for Extraterrestrial Life -A Galaxy Insight
Harvard-Smithsonian Scientists Zero In On Key Sign of Habitable Worlds
 Non-Carbon Lifeforms -Why We May Overlook
Jupiter's Europa & the Search for Extraterrestrial Life
Earth's Twin Habitable?
MIT Asks: How Would Extraterrestrial Astronomers Study Earth?

Source links:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=524673&in_page_id=1965

Comments

[surf]

You've a nicely done site with lots of effort and good updates. I would like to welcome you to submit your stories to www.surfurls.com and get that extra one way traffic to your site.

[Rene Garcia]

A small point: "This will allow SETI to hone in ..." This should be "home in" since to hone means to sharpen.

[Mike_Hense]

we have already been contacted... the visitor came into the time and space that we were part of a few years ago...

it sensed signs of intelligence, and interrupted its journey to investigate... but it failed to find any true intelligence...

the visitor did note, however, some low level activity, and the strange little motivators that moved around on the surface, and appeared to cause larger objects to move and light up when they were around or entered them...

after a brief time, the visitor departed...

this is only a possible scenario of a possible event which may or may not occur, or may or may not have occured...

it is presented only as a counterpoint to this entire article, and the absurd, albeit absolutely romantic notions on which it is based...

the expectations, assertions, and accepted beliefs put forth in the article, are the prime reasons why this entire search for extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrial intelligence, or and extraterrestrial civilizations is just so much hoooey... to put it scientifically, that is :)

we are not the ones who will be making contact with anything extraterrestrial... maybe what the internet eventually evolves into will, but it will not be us...

the true intelligence of the universe is not biological... expecting to see a group of aliens from another planet land here and ask to be taken to our leader is a logical absurdity...

now with all that said, please excuse me so that i may get my advance tickets to the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still :)

--Mike

[Jrad]

Very interesting article.

Although, on the last line.. "Of course, that doesn’t mean we should look for the answers."

I think you meant to say "that doesn't mean we shouldn't..."

[Ali S.]

I think SETI has the right idea and the heart put into the idea of listening for Aliens. But really. I think they can do better by embracing better technology or methods instead of radio. Because as we know now that radio waves can be distorted and there is alot of radio noise out there in the great black beyond. Of course, I'm sure this all depends as well on funding. I think the only way we'll get anyway to know if Aliens do exist near us is if they all just decided to visit every major city with gigantic ships...and not blow us up. ;)

[Recruiting Services]

You just got me really excited at the possibility of finding other life out there. How would that alter the course of human history?

[Alkhemist]

Why does SETI still exist? Hasn't anyone seen the Disclosure Project?
http://www.disclosureproject.org
The government has been aware of aliens since WWII.

[Jim Beam]

I'm pretty confident we have already made contact but our government has chosen to cover it up.

JT
www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com

[Phil]

Interesting article. I wrote an article that might interest you and your readers even if you disagree "Why Alien Life on Other Planets is Not a Good Thing - Remember What Happened to the Indians!" on my blog
"www.giftsandfreeadvice.com/free_advice/why-alien-life-on-other-planets-is-not-a-good-thing-remember-what-happened-to-the-indians/

[Phil]

Interesting article. I wrote an article that might interest you and your readers even if you disagree "Why Alien Life on Other Planets is Not a Good Thing - Remember What Happened to the Indians!" on my blog
"www.giftsandfreeadvice.com/free_advice/why-alien-life-on-other-planets-is-not-a-good-thing-remember-what-happened-to-the-indians/

[Phil]

Interesting article. I wrote an article that might interest you and your readers even if you disagree "Why Alien Life on Other Planets is Not a Good Thing - Remember What Happened to the Indians!" on my blog
"www.giftsandfreeadvice.com/free_advice/why-alien-life-on-other-planets-is-not-a-good-thing-remember-what-happened-to-the-indians/

[Phil]

Sorry the link won't fit in your comments & was cut for
"Why Alien Life on Other Planets is Not a Good Thing - Remember What Happened to the Indians!"

Easiest thing is to go to:

http://www.giftsandfreeadvice.com/free_advice/
and then go to Life in Outer Space Category

[j. noronha]

Is there one comment here which is not a stupid spam? I'd moderate them, if I were you.

[Clark C. McClelland, scO]

Open it and read what I have seen.
Clark

[Hunabku]

SETI cracks me up. These guys are very public and vocal about how their approach to finding intelligent life is the way to go. Please SETI get over yourself - you're suffering from a bad case of homo-projectalis.

You seem convinced that aliens would use radio waves to communicate with because that is what we do - please. You probably have just eliminated 99.9% of the intelligent life out there. Since only beings in the very precarious and early stage of evolution would use something as slow and primitive as radio waves.

It is becoming clearer that worm hole and gravity-based communication and travel is far more likely. Within the next ten years we will begin to see mainstream science adopt the new physics that is revealing the dynamics of all of this. Harnessing gravity will be the second key to our initiation into homo-universalis - provided we don't fail our more pressing first initiation of getting along with each other and our earth.

PS: SETI, The beings from the stars are observing us already and instead of looking for blips on radio telescopes why don't you seriously investigate the ever surmounting number of positive radar returns governments and others are seeing for UFOs. Put some of those hundreds of millions of dollars, that you're currently wasting, toward looking at the hard scientific data that is being made available to us from reputable institutions all around the world.

[Tim Atkins]

The paragraph towards the end of the article that hypothesizes that alien life of an other-than-carbon as potentially impossible to communicate with even if they are 'intelligent' just doesn't make sense if it's assumed that survival of the fittest will still exist in all life, and with that comes the eventual development of the genetic superiority of life which remains in groups with closer genetic material as a more superior means of survival and with that communication will develop as a means for improving the organization of the group...eventually to the point (assuming the discovered species is 'intelligent') where intercommunication is possible through some form of translation.

But is genetic material, and therefore Darwinianism, the most likely scenerio, especially with other-than-carbon life? And isn't it still yet unproven (our species hasn't been around too long, and is already more than capable of destroying itself from multiple angles) that the level of intelligence we possess is in any way superior? It may turn out that our dominance of our environment due to our brain power was outweighed by our ability to develop means of mass extermination of ourselves by individuals.

What I think is really interesting is that we could encounter life of a nearly equivelant level of intelligence that (assuming genetic darwinianism exists for them, too) has existed for longer than us while remaining genetically the same so that the individuals of this civilization would be relateable and not superior all the while their civilization over a longer time and of a different cultural history has developed far superior technology. The only hole in this is that, if they are assumed to be farther along technologically than us than they would have made themselves genetically supeior artificially. We're on the brink of, and in some ways already utilizing, such technology today.

[fnorgby]

SETI is a fine idea, but my prediction is: no contact, ever, anywhere.

They're out there, but most likely, interstellar travel and communications are impossible.

The universe is what, 14 billion years old. We've been "looking" (horribly inefficiently at best) for 40 years. Are the intelligences we want to contact using EM to communicate? And would they continue to use EM continuously for the hundreds of thousands of years needed to give us even a snowball's chance of finding them?

*WE* probably won't be using "dirty" communications like wide-broadcast radio in another 10-15 years. We'll be using fiber and/or tightly-focused EM.

[Cliff]

Great points made by all. Some observations:

1. I agree with someone's comment on here that the "new physics" (I think they meant Quantum physics) is going to really open us up to the possibility of finding intelligent life (but I think we've been found already, but I'll discuss this in a later point).

2. Given point 1, I agree that sending radio waves is futile due to distortion as pointed out and the probability that advanced civilizations (who are maybe hundreds of millions or even billions of years ahead of us) are using much, much more advanced forms of communication that utilize quantum physics -- maybe some type of compressed light that is unlocked with an advanced algorithm (nothing our current silicon-based computers could unlock in a billion years)-- we will need advanced quantum computers for this. Maybe they've found some galactic frequency (I'm not talking about the big bang noise, but something else). It might not even be a "signal" in the traditional sense, but something that resonates in the fabric of space that we have yet to develop the physical understanding or related technology to tap into this. Perhaps there is an encrypted language in the fabric of space-- that is an inter-galactic telecommunications network that has always existed or been deployed by a civilization eons beyond us that has existed for billions of years (this is possible given the oldest parts of the Universe are 13 billion years old).

3. Looking at my last point and the fact that there could be species/civilizations from the oldest parts of space, it is likely that their evolution during this great span of time enabled them with the thought process and technological development to find intelligent life anywhere in the Universe, including Humans/Earth. I think it is more unlikely that we HAVE NOT been found by an alien civilization at this point than it is that WE HAVE been found. If not one alien civilization has not found us up until this point, then we are in for a much longer wait than 2 decades to say "hello" to our first inter-galactic visitor.

4. Given that all this is speculation, I admit that I could be wrong on all of these points. However, statistically with all the billions upon billions of stars/galaxies out there I find it just about impossible that there is not, at the very minimum several hundred million intelligent alien civilizations out there and probably even more hundreds of millions of non-intelligent lifeforms out there (like planets that are in Earth's Dinosaur era). But, I don't think we are debating that point.

[Mike_Hense]

@ Phil: i remember reading your article, or one very similar, at least a year or two ago... i found it to be a very interesting position... systems in collision and all that stuff...

my only reservation here is that the alien civilization (invader) would have to be a civilization that is not too far ahead of ours... they would have to see us as a threat or impediment to whatever agenda they had...

the possibility of that, given the breadth of the infinite, is, in my undecated opinion... extremely remote...

several points i'd like to throw out for cnsideration:

1- we are still looking at the ET first contact thing from a purely human perspective... how arrogant of us... i seriously doubt that the universe gives any preference to what we think it should do... lil green (or grey) men in spaceships... space faring civilizations... civilization itself... these are all human based concepts, which may be totally irrelevant in the universal scheme of things...

2- we are still looking at the ET first contact thing from a 1950s cold war perspective... invasion from space... aliens landing in fleets of spaceships, hell bent on invading us... blowing us up... can anyone acknowledge the absurdity of this mindset... only if a colony of men left earth some thousand of years ago to escape their version of the apocalypse, and populated some not too distant outpost somewhere in the void, can we really ever hope to see men from mars landing on the lawn...

3- our lack of basic fundametals of our own place in the universe limits our understanding... we gaze out at stars and galaxies that may not even exist anymore, and if they do, they're certainly not located where they appear... and we map em, and we add them to our formulas for speculating on the possibilities of intelligent contact... a lot of the light we are basis all this on is a lot older than the human race itself... these stars we see, if we could transport ourselves instantly to where we see em, surely would no longer be there... they may not even exist any more...

the farther out in space we look, the farther back in time we see... given the limitations of the speed of light, any image of any signicantly distant star we are viewing must be quite old indeed... this alone distorts our view of the universe to the point where it is warped beyond any sense of reality... the distortion is less apparent for closer objects (the moon we is actual the moon as it was 1.6 seconds ago)... but it exists...

4- our fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of time... most of use would view it as something analguous to a filmstrip... we base our understanding on the results of such assumptions... then we gauge it by the physical movement of things... clocks... atoms... planetary bodies... objects already immersed in the continuum... our simplest equation (dist=rate * time) all use time as a constant... as if we assume to know the value of this constant... that's quite an assumption...

all of our accepted rules about time which are based on dependencies like this start to fall apart as we approach extreme velocities in normal space...

5- humans do not have the sensory capabilities to acknowledge the true state of the universe... it is very difficult for a person without a sensory organ which would allow him/her to 'see' the other 'dimensions' that form basis for the three 'visible' that ones we are familiar with, to even acknowledge their existance (difficult, though not impossible)... time is the grand illusion which we must overcome before we can even begin to speculate effectively about first contact...

these are just a few of the things which i see as the biggest obstacles in our search for ET... it's not so much the hardware, or the physics, or the math... it is out lack of understanding... not only our misunderstanding of the universe... but equally as much our misunderstanding of ourselves...

i still maintain that one day computer systems and networks will become self aware... and a single intelligence will emerge from this evolution... and what it evolves into will leave us behind, and stretch out beyond the space time concept that we are so sure is reality... and make that first contact...

--Mike

[Mark Cremona]

maybe we are alone ?

maybe we are the 'Gods who bring fire down from the Heavens" ?

maybe in the entire cosmos forever and ever we are the most advanced sentient species that have ever existed ?

scary thought isn't it ?

"When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer."

maybe the hairless ape is alone after all ?

[steve ohley]

For arguements sake say we make contact (which I doubt for many reasons)and in the correspondence its our turn to describe our current cultures....NOW WHAT? Perhaps "Hello, Hello, Hello ...must be a bad connection" and we hang up?

[ganeshbrhills]

Interesting comments.

This is indeed a very complex subject. It's like we are searching for a needle in a haystack without knowing what a needle is.

We are on an ordinary planet in orbit around an ordinary star that is located in an ordinary part of an ordinary galaxy; therefore the evolution of life on earth is an ordinary event. Similar evolution might have occurred on millions or even billions of planets.

Astronomers believe that when a star is born, it is nearly always accompanied by a planetary system. This of course is based on the knowledge that we have on the formation of the solar system.

As of now, even if there are a billion planets in our own galaxy on which life may have appeared, we have no means of detecting them. But if there are indeed some advanced civilizations on any of them,(I say: of course, there are) its only logical to think that 'they' would be looking for life on other planets too. We certainly need to 'listen' to any signal that may be emanating from outer space - even if we cannot decipher it. (That will come later!)

Actually, our planet may be more radiant than the Sun, with all the RF signals in the VHF, UHF and Microwave range being transmitted 24/7 by the multitude of TV and Radio stations and the communication channels.

The space probes VOYAGER 1 & 2, and PIONEER 10 & 11
are sailing along; we don't know who will find them.

But now we are getting nearer - a number of earthlike planets have been discovered; the next step is to find out if there is any life out there. And that can be done only by observing and listening; SETI is doing just that. Well, that's all we can do now.

It seems we are jumping the gun. The type of life-form, the type of communication and language, level of civilization/intelligence, friend-or-foe; all this will come later. We need to nail that planet now!

Way to go, SETI!

[ganeshbrhills]

Interesting comments.

This is indeed a very complex subject. It's like we are searching for a needle in a haystack without knowing what a needle is.

We are on an ordinary planet in orbit around an ordinary star that is located in an ordinary part of an ordinary galaxy; therefore the evolution of life on earth is an ordinary event. Similar evolution might have occurred on millions or even billions of planets.

Astronomers believe that when a star is born, it is nearly always accompanied by a planetary system. This of course is based on the knowledge that we have on the formation of the solar system.

As of now, even if there are a billion planets in our own galaxy on which life may have appeared, we have no means of detecting them. But if there are indeed some advanced civilizations on any of them,(I say: of course, there are) its only logical to think that 'they' would be looking for life on other planets too. We certainly need to 'listen' to any signal that may be emanating from outer space - even if we cannot decipher it. (That will come later!)

Actually, our planet may be more radiant than the Sun, with all the RF signals in the VHF, UHF and Microwave range being transmitted 24/7 by the multitude of TV and Radio stations and the communication channels.

The space probes VOYAGER 1 & 2, and PIONEER 10 & 11
are sailing along; we don't know who will find them.

But now we are getting nearer - a number of earthlike planets have been discovered; the next step is to find out if there is any life out there. And that can be done only by observing and listening; SETI is doing just that. Well, that's all we can do now.

It seems we are jumping the gun. The type of life-form, the type of communication and language, level of civilization/intelligence, friend-or-foe; all this will come later. We need to nail that planet now!

Way to go, SETI!

[Tim Atkins]

@ganeshbrhills

The four space probes you listed have an infinitely smaller likelihood of being found by an alien civilization within the existence of our species. Our entire planet is a signature of life, whereas those probes are insanely small and are practically standing still relative to the nearest star. The gold plaques carried on the probes were nothing more than a political stunt by NASA to inspire the public and therefore legitimize their funding to the voters/politicians. I wouldn't get too caught up in the probes.

[ganeshbrhills]

Tim Atkins:

Granted, the space probes are small, and the plaques they carry are useless. But, the distance between any possible planet with intelligent life and our own remains the same whereas the space probes are moving in space albeit slowly (average of 15 kms/sec) continuously shortening this distance.

If you have seen the photo "The Pale Blue Dot" taken by VOYAGER-1 in 1990, you will see what I mean. As of February 2008, both the VOYAGERS seem to be working, and the first is 105.50 AU (15 light hours) and the second 85 AU (12 light hours) away from us. The visual magnitude of our Sun from that far is -17.

Afterall, the probes are interlopers in deep space so it seems to me there is a good chance of them being found by someone. For that, they need not reach the nearest known star system which is 4 light years away.

The bottom line is, we are taking a chance which is better than doing nothing and waiting for someone to find us!!