Astronomy has mixed groups of people like any other science and it's interesting that some are admitting we might just not KNOW what to look for with the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligences (SETI). But this IBT article from last October is interesting because it shows by our own scientific estimation that....
"Milky Way Galaxy 'Home to 3,000 Alien Civilisations'" it's just that we have to get lucky and find that one minute clue (considering the size of the Milky Way) that will have us jumping.
Milky Way and nearby galaxy Andromeda.ReutersThere
are probably thousands of alien civilisations living in the Milky Way,
but our chances of ever meeting them are extremely low, an expert has
said.
Michael Garrett, head of the Netherlands Institute
for Radio Astronomy (Astron), made the comments at the International
Astronomical Congress in Toronto.
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Reported by Discovery News,
the astronomer said data collected by Nasa and other space agencies
suggests that Earth is one of 40 billion potentially habitable planets
in our galaxy.
In addition, another habitable planet is
believed to form every year, meaning the chance of alien civilisations
existing is very high - there may be around 3,000 alien civilisations
already out there according to the study.
However,
Garrett said that with the sheer size of the Milky Way, sending out
signals and receiving one back from a civilisation advanced enough to
possess this technology is unlikely at the moment.
"On
average, you'd expect the civilizations to be separated by at least
1,000 light-years in the Milky Way," he is quoted as saying. "That's a
large distance, and for communication purposes you need to allow for
twice the travel distance, so you're talking about civilizations that
have to be around for at least a few thousand years in order to have the
opportunity to talk to each other."
He pointed to Earth
as an example of how life developed, with extremely simple life forms
having been around for billions of years. Intelligent life only arrived
much later, he said.
"We don't really know the time
scales in which civilizations persist. [Intelligent life only developed]
essentially in the last few minutes of the overall evolution of life on
the planet. I don't want to be too negative about this, but... my basic
conclusion is that Seti (search for extraterrestrial intelligence)
signals will be rare in the Milky Way."
While Garrett does not expect to hear from aliens in the near future, experts at Seti are more hopeful.
In March, leading Seti astronomer Seth Shostak said he expects to make contact within the next 20 years thanks to advances in technology.
Speaking
to Popular Mechanics, he said the search is still in its infancy, and
is limited by equipment and money, but believes we are not far off: "My
guess that we'll succeed in the next two decades is based on the fact
that with improvements in digital electronics and computers – which are
getting better and cheaper, following Moore's law – we will be
continually sifting through the sky faster.
"And you can extrapolate how fast we'll be able to search, assuming we have the money, in the next decade or two."
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It had better happen in the next twenty years -or before! Otherwise my final words will be "D'oh! I've wasted my life!"
That writ, people believe humans are not prepared for alien contact, nor should we be attempting such a thing: neuro-psychologist Gabriel G. de la Torre, professor at the University
of Cádiz, has said scientists operating at organisations such as the
SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) should not be actively sending out messages to try to contact alien beings.
I think that, after a hundred plus years of science fiction literature, thousands of books and articles on aliens, UFOs and more -added to hundreds of movies and TV programmes about extra terrestrials, if de la Torre thinks humans cannot handle that concept then he is wrong. It is not the more naiive 1930s when the late great Orson Welles created panic with his War of the Worlds broadcast. This is 2015.
What humans will ask is the same they ask in any terrestrial meeting: "hostile or friendly?" THAT is what it comes down to. Hundreds of thousands -possibly millions- watch Ancient Astronaut and UFO documentaries each year and say "There has to be something in it!" But are they running around screaming in panic? No.
I once had a very "loud argument" with Carl Sagan. He was seen as the "arch debunker" of UFOs but he was, as I found out, far more open than seemed to be publicly known. Discussing people like Erich von Daniken and his Chariots of the Gods claims, which are about 99% sheer rubbish, Sagan actually stated that there was no proof aliens had visited Earth in the past -nor was there evidence that they had not.
And I have always been similar in my thinking. A great many Ancient Astronaut followers see 'evidence' everywhere and yet ignore a proper explanation. "Humans could not have built large ancient structures" such as the pyramids or even Stone Henge they declare. "Only" anti-gravitational devices from visitors to our planet could have achieved this.
In fact, back in the early 1980s I got so "steamed up" at someone giving a talk about "How aliens built the pyramids" because humans could not that I pointed out what we knew about pyramid construction back then -and we have learnt far more since then. "Well, that is what archaeologists want you to believe" I was told. You cannot argue with blinkered minds that will spit on the achievements of humankind because it spoils their theories. Humankind achieved a great deal and that needs to be acknowledged.
Not wishing to get the Ancient Astronaut theorists too over excited, this story is also interesting -and I make no claims regarding the images above!
Nasa: Ancient Rock Art 'Might Have Been Made By Aliens' Not Human Civilisations
Cup and ring mark stone: Nasa suggests such rock carvings could explain how we communicate with extraterrestrialsWiki CommonsNasa
has released a new book that suggests ancient rock carvings found
across the globe were may have been created by extraterrestrials.
As
the search for life on planets other than our own continues, the space
agency has suggested ways in which we might communicate with aliens from
other worlds.
In
one section, William Edmondson, from the University of Birmingham,
considers the possibility that rock art on Earth is of extraterrestrial
origin.
"We can say little, if anything, about what these
patterns signify, why they were cut into rocks, or who created them,"
he writes. "For all intents and purposes, they might have been made by
aliens.
"Edmondson maintains that suggesting the ancient
markings were created by aliens is necessary to reframe the way we go
about searching for signals from other worlds - and how we make contact.
"One of these is "rock art," which consists of patterns or
shapes cut into rock many thousands of years ago. Such ancient stone
carvings can be found in many countries... We can say little, if
anything, about what these patterns signify, why they were cut into
rocks, or who created them."
Vakoch's research studies ways in which different
civilisations might "create messages that could be transmitted across
interstellar space" - allowing communication between humans and
extraterrestrials without face-to-face contact.
The
introduction to the book states: "Addressing a field that has been
dominated by astronomers, physicists, engineers, and computer
scientists, the contributors to this collection raise questions that may
have been overlooked by physical scientists about the ease of
establishing meaningful communication with an extraterrestrial
intelligence."
Elsewhere, authors tackle the question of
the possible biology, evolution and physics of an alien race. Vakoch examines methods in which extraterrestrials might communicate,
as messaging through sound, as we do on Earth, may not be possible.Vakoch
examines methods in which extraterrestrials might communicate, as messaging through sound, as we do on Earth, may not be possible.
***************************************
And many UFO believers will tell you matter-of-factly, "They" are already here so why bother looking and, oh, by-the-way, "there are thousands of them out there -and the governments know where they come from!"
I started reading this and thought "Journalists!" but then I decided that it was not too bad (not sure which universe the reporter thinks alien civilisations might be in -the Multiverse?).
Nathalie Cabrol's words were never truer: "We tend to ask questions in
the way we do. But what kind of thought process an alien civilisation
may have, we really don't know. We are somewhat advanced, but we are a
teenage civilisation. We are playing with toys and technologies but we
don't know the rules very well yet."
ET, are you there? The Green Bank Telescope is one of many radio telescopes being used by SETI to detect alien radio signalsJarek Tuszynski / Wikimedia Commons
Kepler-444 hosts five ancient Earth-sized planets.Tiago Campante/Peter DevineAlien
civilisations are either extremely rare or absent from our local
universe, or as a species we are not advanced enough to detect them.
Michael Garrett, from the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy,
used radio measurements to scan the cosmos for waste heat – thought to
be a signature of advanced alien life able to harness huge amounts of
energy.
Kardashev Scale
Firstly, it is worth
noting scientists have categories for how advanced any alien
civilisation is depending on the power available to them – called the
Kardashev Scale. Humans are almost Type I, being able to harvest resources from our own planet and produce energy equivalent to the solar insolation on Earth.
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Type
II is a civilisation capable of harnessing all of the radiation energy
from its own star. Type III civilisations can harness energy on the
scale of their own galaxy. Kardashev Type III civilisations are expected
to be detectable in the mid-infrared part of the spectrum through the
emission of significant waste heat.
Candidate Galaxies
Previously,
astronomers had identified several hundred candidate galaxies where
there are unusually extreme mid-IR emissions. However, this kind of
emission can also be generated by natural astrophysical processes.
Garrett looked at these candidate galaxies with radio measurements
and found most of the systems have an emission best explained by
natural processes – most likely dust generated and heated by regions of
massive star formation.
"The new analysis suggests that
this is probably an understatement, and that advanced Kardashev Type III
civilisations basically don't exist in the local Universe. In my view,
it means we can all sleep safely in our beds tonight - an alien invasion
doesn't seem at all likely!" Garrett said.
"Some of
these systems definitely demand further investigation but those already
studied in detail turn out to have a natural astrophysical explanation
too. It's very likely that the remaining systems also fall into this
category but of course it's worth checking just in case."
However,
Garrett also noted it is concerning that Type III civilisations do not
appear to exist, as it is contrary to what is predicted by our physical
laws used to explain the universe. "We're missing an important part of
the jigsaw puzzle here," he said.
"Perhaps advanced
civilisations are so energy efficient that they produce very low waste
heat emission products - our current understanding of physics makes that
a difficult thing to do. What's important is to keep on searching for
the signatures of extra-terrestrial intelligence until we fully
understand just what is going on."
Humans are too stupid to find aliens
Another explanation for the lack of contact with advanced civilisations is that we are just too primitive
to detect the signals they may be sending out. Nathalie Cabrol, who
leads the search for alien life at the Seti Institute in California,
told the Daily Mail that
while we might find a simple lifeform outside our planet within the
coming decades, anything more advanced is off our radar – quite
literally.
"See how much progress we have made in the
past 100 years. If there is a civilisation out there that is only 1,000
years older than we are, who knows what type of technology, or what type
of process, they've put into communicating with others. We're just
scratching the surface here. We're looking at the universe from our own
standpoint," said Cabrol.
"We tend to ask questions in
the way we do. But what kind of thought process an alien civilisation
may have, we really don't know. We are somewhat advanced, but we are a
teenage civilisation. We are playing with toys and technologies but we
don't know the rules very well yet."
A monster wolffish caught off the coast of Japan's island of Hokkaido
is not the result of radiation from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster
– it is just a big fish, a scientist has said. Timothy Mousseau, one of
the world's leading experts on the effects of nuclear contamination on
wildlife, told IBTimes UK it is "extremely unlikely" the contamination had anything to do with the wolffish's unusually large size.
"First and foremost simply because usually the effects of mutations
are to reduce growth rates to make things smaller," he said. "They grow
less efficiently, they're less capable of catching food and they tend to
not live as long. Most of the effects of increased mutations are
deleterious. Very very few mutations lead to extra-large size."
Wolffish normally grow up to around 110cm – the largest ever recorded
was 150cm. However, the one caught by Hiroshi Hirasaka (images of which
he shared on Twitter)
was around 200cm in length. The pictures led some people to suggest a
link with the Fukushima disaster, the largest nuclear accident since the
Chernobyl explosion of 1986.
But this is not the case, Mousseau said.
"It's just a really lucky catch by this fisherman. If you look hard and
long enough there's always a few that manage to survive long enough to
achieve these large sizes. Fish have what we call indeterminate growth,
which means as long as they are living they tend to get bigger and
bigger and bigger. So there's usually a good relationship between size
and age. If there's enough of them out there and nothing eating them and
no one fishing for them, then they can live long enough to reach large
sizes."
While this is no Godzilla-esque
mutant wolffish, wildlife in Fukushima has been badly affected by the
radiation leak. Mousseau said he and other scientists have been
monitoring bird populations in Fukushima since the disaster and have
seen major declines in numbers in the more contaminated areas. They are
also looking at mice and moths, and he said the effects of the disaster
will be seen for many more years.
"The good news is about half of the radiation has already disappeared
because of natural decomposition and decay," he said. "That combined
with natural processes are leading to the decline in the level of
radiation.
"The bad news is that the most contaminated part of the area, which
is a significant land area, will be contaminated for decades if not
centuries, so we will continue to see the effects for some time
especially in the contaminated areas."
And for all you conspiracy theorists out there: WHAT aren't they telling us?? Hmm?
