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SETI search shows no signs of intell. life


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The exoplanets of greatest interest show no sign of intelligent civilisations–so far.

The discovery of an ever-growing number of potentially habitable exoplanets brings an extra spiciness to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. For the first time, astronomers can direct the search towards these likely planets rather than aiming in hope towards the stars.

Today, Jill Tarter, from the SETI Institute and of Contact fame, along with a group of buddies, reveal the results of their first directed search, carried out between February and April 2011.

These guys pointed the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia at 86 stars hosting exoplanets discovered by the Kepler space telescope. They chose their targets because they had exoplanets in the Goldilocks zone, had five or more exoplanets or had super Earths with relatively long orbits.

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/510996/seti-study-of-habitable-exoplanets-draws-a-blank-for-jill-tarter/

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There may be life,but not as we know it,but supposing you were on an Alien planet able to recieve radio signals,would you reply instantly or wait to see what the other guys were up to.One day we shall get a signal back, then what happens ?.Peace in their language might mean total elimination.

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so many stars to check.. it could also be.. the planets we are looking could have advance tech that no longer uses radio waves..

the signals we are looking for could have already passed us during our very early years.. who knows., still it is interesting :)

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I could've told you that.

Maybe we should just all sit on our butts, and wait for ET to come to us (like the woo woos do) and tell us that nukes are bad toys. Take care of the planet.

KOMBA YA YA KOMBA YAAAA

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86 down and only roughly 1 septillion to go!

Yeah I agree

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The equipment we are using could be so dated to them, they may not be able to receive it. I know my mobile phone will not ring if someone tried to send it smoke signals.

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And 86 out of how many millions?

They may well be pointed at the wrong part of the haystack.

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And 86 out of how many millions?

They may well be pointed at the wrong part of the haystack.

a fewww more than a million ;)

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The equipment we are using could be so dated to them, they may not be able to receive it. I know my mobile phone will not ring if someone tried to send it smoke signals.

Then what do you think we should use.... Quantum entanglement..... Subspace communication!!?

We can only use what we know and have.

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Then what do you think we should use.... Quantum entanglement..... Subspace communication!!?

We can only use what we know and have.

How would I know? I was only pointing out that it may be dated, it may even be too advanced for them....or they do not use the same kind of communication systems as us, so it would be useless.....there may just be plants, or insects on there, or fish or dinosaurs, apes or dogs, anything but human.....hence until we keep trying with other forms of communications we may just be wasting an awful lot of billions.

The system we are using is man made, so unless they have the same mindset as us, its useless.

The only way we will really know is by landing on one of them,,,,but that is still a long way off.

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I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If there's intelligent life out there, then it's so scarce that the possibility of detecting a signal is next to none.

Given Drake's equation, SETI should have gotten a "hit" the very first time they fired up. Sure, they wouldn't all be using "primitive" radio signals to communicate. But let's say only .001 percent of the possible civilizations out there use exactly what we use. There are literally trillions upon trillions upon trillions of stars in the universe. The majority likely have planets.

The entire dial should have been lit up as soon as SETI turned on.

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Let me put it a better way. Only about once every 500 years or so do we witness a supernova event in our galaxy......but scientists study the phenomenon every single day. Several times.

That should give you a hint.

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The equipment we are using could be so dated to them, they may not be able to receive it. I know my mobile phone will not ring if someone tried to send it smoke signals.

I never thought of that, should I try beating a drum to see what happens ? dum dum dum Bong Bong Bong dum dum dum , Oh well not to worry hee hee.
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I never thought of that, should I try beating a drum to see what happens ? dum dum dum Bong Bong Bong dum dum dum , Oh well not to worry hee hee.

Thats done it, my phone is ringing. :tu:

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I never thought of that, should I try beating a drum to see what happens ? dum dum dum Bong Bong Bong dum dum dum , Oh well not to worry hee hee.

My I.S.P. keeps trying to flog me an iPad,as they reckon my cell phone is steam powered,(or its only £30 per month to rent one),but all I want is a phone that I can use as a phone without all these fancy gadgets on.(my friends reckon I'm Fred Flintstones cousin) like blow thru a conch shell,hee hee.
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My I.S.P. keeps trying to flog me an iPad,as they reckon my cell phone is steam powered,(or its only £30 per month to rent one),but all I want is a phone that I can use as a phone without all these fancy gadgets on.(my friends reckon I'm Fred Flintstones cousin) like blow thru a conch shell,hee hee.

You mean your phone does not make you cups of coffee in the morning? your phone is sooooo yesterday.

get the Ipad and then f em off.

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As the article explains, this search was limited in sensitivity, and very limited in it's duration, and in the range of radio frequencies surveyed. As Dr. Tarter herself likes to point out, we have, with all our SETI searches to date, scooped a glassful of water out of an ocean of possibilities. The fact that we found no little fishes in the glass is of no real significance in what it can tell us about the abundance of technical civilizations in the galaxy.

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As the article explains, this search was limited in sensitivity, and very limited in it's duration, and in the range of radio frequencies surveyed. As Dr. Tarter herself likes to point out, we have, with all our SETI searches to date, scooped a glassful of water out of an ocean of possibilities. The fact that we found no little fishes in the glass is of no real significance in what it can tell us about the abundance of technical civilizations in the galaxy.

How? it hasn`t found anything.

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How? it hasn`t found anything.

We simply haven't searched enough to know much about what is or isn't out there. If we've searched through one set of variables of time, radio frequency, and signal power and there are a million sets of these variables, there could still be 999,999 civilizations out there and we wouldn't have detected them. That seems to be the message Dr. Tarter is trying to convey with her 'glassful of the ocean' metaphor.
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How would I know? I was only pointing out that it may be dated, it may even be too advanced for them....or they do not use the same kind of communication systems as us, so it would be useless.....there may just be plants, or insects on there, or fish or dinosaurs, apes or dogs, anything but human.....hence until we keep trying with other forms of communications we may just be wasting an awful lot of billions.

The system we are using is man made, so unless they have the same mindset as us, its useless.

The only way we will really know is by landing on one of them,,,,but that is still a long way off.

First of all - SETI arent spending "billions" (not even close)..... they are financed entirely by private contributions.

Second - The money and effort are so small with respect to the "pay-off"..... if they would find something.

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The desire, obviously, is to learn something about intelligent life in the universe, at the earliest opportunity. We stand a much better chance of doing so by radio contact, than by waiting until we can travel to other solar systems. The mindset that allows the creation of radio technology is probably not unique to humans. It could easily occur in most technical civilizations, very early on, as it did with us.

The fact that some better communications technology may be developed by more advanced technical civilizations, should not deter us. It is entirely possible that some modestly more advanced civilizations may be interested in communicating with us. They should be smart enough to use a method that we can detect. Radio just naturally suggests itself, at our level of development.

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Humans suffer from anthropomorphism or we tend to assign human characteristics to non-human objects, e.g. Aesop's fables, human face on Mars' surface etc. We expect the billions of random events, or engineered events depending upon one's philosophical bent, that allowed us to evolve to our current state has also occurred elsewhere and evolved a comparable entity who communicates in much the same manner ... That's a very lofty expectation.

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