Extraterrestrial

Aliens could be sending quantum messages, study claims

By T.K. Randall
July 6, 2022 ·  53 comments

It's unlikely that aliens would be using radio signals to communicate. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 4.0 MjolnirPants For decades, efforts to scour the heavens for signs of intelligent alien communications have focused on picking up traditional radio signals, however it is actually far more likely that an extraterrestrial civilization sufficiently advanced to be capable of traveling between the stars will have developed methods of communication that are far more practical over such enormous distances.

Even communicating with our own space probes in orbit around planets within our own solar system can be a long-winded process, with messages taking minutes or even hours to travel back and forth.

Sending a message between two solar systems would be exponentially worse, with even a single message taking years or decades to reach the closest star systems.

One theoretical way around this would be to find a way to send messages via quantum entanglement (a phenomenon in which the state of one particle in an entangled pair can be changed instantly over a distance.)While such communication has yet to be achieved on Earth (physicists question whether it is actually possible to send any data at all via quantum entanglement), it is not unreasonable to imagine that an alien civilization might have been able to master it (or perhaps some variation of it).

Another possibility would be to use quantum particles to send information (a form of quantum communication that is currently subject to experimentation on Earth in the hope of creating ultra-secure networks).

According to a new study, quantum communication has the potential to work over vast distances through space - not only across solar systems, but also across galaxies.

If this is true, then if we actually had a way to pick up such communications, we could potentially be privy to an entire intergalactic network of messages from all corners of the universe.

Source: Science News | Comments (53)

Tags: Alien, Extraterrestrial