Article by Andrew Griffin of The Independent. My comments follow:
Nasa is funding a major new search for alien life elsewhere in the universe.
The project – which is being run by scientists at Harvard and the University of Rochester – will scan the skies for signs of life known as technosignatures. Those are indications of alien technologies, which would be revealed to us either on purpose or by accident.
The research is the first time in three decades that Nasa has given a grant to look for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, and the first time it has ever tried to do so without looking for radio technosignatures.
Researchers believe that while life elsewhere in the universe may look very different, it is likely to be identifiable by similar signatures as those given off by life on Earth. As such, they hope that they will be able to spot indications that alien civilisations elsewhere are using the kind of technology we are already using, or could theoretically use in the future.
"Technosignatures relate to signatures of advanced alien technologies similar to, or perhaps more sophisticated than, what we possess," said Avi Loeb, Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard. "Such signatures might include industrial pollution of atmospheres, city lights, photovoltaic cells (solar panels), megastructures, or swarms of satellites."
Astronomers believe that the search could have more success than in the past because humanity has made great strides in finding worlds elsewhere in the universe, and understanding whether they could serve as home to life elsewhere. With those discoveries, researchers should now be able to know more accurately where they should be looking.
"The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has always faced the challenge of figuring out where to look. Which stars do you point your telescope at and look for signals?" said Adam Frank, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, and the primary recipient of the grant. "Now we know where to look. We have thousands of exoplanets including planets in the habitable zone where life can form. The game has changed."
At first, the researchers will look for two main signatures: solar panels, and pollutants. Both represent key and identifiable ways that humanity has changed the Earth, and so any alien civilisation might do the same.
It is likely that other civilisations would look to harness the energy of their sun as they look for new ways to power their technology, for instance. If that was done in the form of solar panels, we might be able to see reflections being sent through the universe.
"The nearest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri, hosts a habitable planet, Proxima b. The planet is thought to be tidally locked with permanent day and night sides," said Loeb. "If a civilization wants to illuminate or warm up the night side, they would place photovoltaic cells on the day side and transfer the electric power gained to the night side."
Likewise, the chemicals released as any alien civilisation builds its infrastructure is likely to be possible to pick up. By looking for chemicals that are unlikely to be produced naturally, we might be able to see that sign across the universe." End
The problem of "solar panels sending their reflections thoughout the universe" is that you are using the universe as your sandbox. Chris Baraniuk in a post on BBC Earth on 13th June 2016 gave this quote: http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20160610-it-took-centuries-but-we-now-know-the-size-of-the-universe#:~:text=Today%20we%20are%20fairly%20confident,billion%20light%20years%20in%20diameter.
"Today we are fairly confident that the Milky Way is probably between 100,000 and 150,000 light years across. The observable Universe is, of course, much larger. According to current thinking it is about 93 billion light years in diameter"
In 40 years time we will -or you might- hear "We've not found anything yet but...."
Firstly, what if an extra terrestrial civilisation does not want to light up its planet at night? If they do it may well be that they have power sources we cannot imagine and use those to light up any cities or areas it needs to. Don't get me wrong; it is one thing to look for and after all but what if they detect "something" because as most prominent astronomers like to say as part of their mantra:"It's anything but aliens" Odd signals: "It's anything but aliens".
My favourite part of this is: "...the chemicals released as any alien civilisation builds its infrastructure is likely to be possible to pick up" which means that if you are very -VERY- lucky and everything is just about "peachy" they might possibly detect the chemicals. But there is still going to be that quote "It's anything but aliens".
The number of people in the astronomical and space community who are terrified of confirming any form of alien life from microbe to higher (microbe is "meh. Possibly acceptable" -and that we know from findings in our own solar system.
People have this idea, possibly brought about by the various planetary charts they have seen since childhood, that you leave Earth and it is a straight line to Mars, then Jupiter, then Saturn and so on. Almost as though the route from Mercury to Pluto (there, I wrote it) is a straight line -an interplanetary highway of sorts. It isn't. Neither is the universe linear: Earth is a grain of sand somewhere in 85 million tons sandbox.
"At least astronomers are trying" someone might say. However, they are looking into deep space -93 billion light years of it. We know that with radio signals you can expect them to take many thousands of years to get to the target "area" of space. Say a civilisation picks up that signal? It will take thousands of years to get the response. We mioght not still be here -in fact scientists say they have sent signals to areas where any intelligent life may have ceased to exist.
If I type a letter then put it in an air-tight sealed container and bury it ten feet (3m) somewhere in the Somerset countryside, miles from any buildings and with no signs indicating where it is located....how long will it be before anyone finds the container let alone reads the letter? Welcome to sending signals into space.
To put it bluntly, we know sod-all about our own solar system. Asteroids skip past us without being detecyted until a few days before. I am sure that the money given to this new "search" could go toward an asteroid defence system. Or, perhaps we ought to concentrate on probing the planets of our system before probing deep space?
Oumuamua showed just how astronomers and scientists can get hysterical -arguing, fighting and name-calling and all done publicly because they must have their five minutes (and it might lead to some profitable TV work, know what I mean?). Ufologists...I exclude from any debate on the subject as even now they are still using the PAINTING of what Omuamua might look like as though it was an actual photo -and they are picking up details on it!
In my book Contact -Encounters with Extra-Terrestrial Entities I wrote about why the French space agency has a unit that looks at UFO reports and the French have investigated and catalogued many UFO cases since the 1950s. Had such open policies been adopted in the UK, United States, Soviet Union/Russia we might be far more enlightened today.
I do NOT believe that an alien space craft crashed at Roswell, New Mexico, definitely never did at Aurora. There was no UFO crash near Nottingham, UK in the 1980s and that was proven beyond a doubt. Rendlesham Forest never saw a UFO crash. The whole "Grey alien abduction phenomenon" as made into a pop culture thing by Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs using very dubious data is just that -a modern pop culture myth. And I write that know that there are certain cases that seem genuine (but do not involve "Greys").
Any intelligent lifefrom elsewhere watching Earth is not going to want to make any open contact. Our best chances of encountering any intelligent life is in near space. Signalling and searching for signals in nearer solar systems -forget the next galaxy over. We need a large number of small probes that can send out a repeatable signal but also listen for such signals.
I would not expect official government bodies to do that (just the mere discussion as to the name of an advisory panel and all the ego pushing would take years. It needs someone with a lot of money and aerospace interest to do this and cut through red tape.Look at Elon Musk and his Starlink satellite system.
I hate to say it but this new search seems to be yet another "free meal-ticket for life" venture that professional astronomers love to get.
Unfortunately, I do not have thousands of years to wait and see if "anything" might be detected.
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