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IntroRant - Introduction to SetiRant
SideRant1 - Verne, Sagan, Roddenberry
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The Hypothesis What is SETI ? Universal Time Earth Time


The Hypothesis

SETI will fail. The universe is so vast and the Earth is so short-lived that, given that intelligent life exists elsewhere, it is very unlikely that we shall ever find them - or - conversely, that they shall ever find us.

The author's hypothesis deliberately ignores the possible discovery of the Fountain of Youth or warping space-time. SETIRant snap-shots what we are doing now and suggests failure due to large scales of time and distance. It's a good Rant.


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What is SETI ?

SETI, the acronym for Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, was originally a NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) program, cancelled by the US Congress in 1993. The successor is Project Phoenix, operated by the SETI Institute.

Project Phoenix is an effort to detect extraterrestrial civilizations by listening for radio signals that are either being deliberately beamed our way, or are inadvertently transmitted from another planet. Phoenix began observations in February, 1995 using the Parkes 210-foot radio telescope in New South Wales, Australia.

Following the southern observing campaign, the project turned its attention to northern stars. Project Phoenix operated the 140-foot radio telescope in Green Bank, West Virginia, from September 1996 through April 1998, using the telescope about 50% of the time.

Phoenix scrutinizes the vicinities of nearby, sun-like stars. Such stars are most likely to host long-lived planets capable of supporting life. Included are stars that are known to have planets. There are about one thousand stars targeted for observation, all within 200 light-years distance.

Because millions of radio channels are simultaneously monitored by Phoenix, most of the listening is done by computers. Astronomers are required to make critical decisions about signals that look intriguing. Phoenix looks for signals between 1,000 and 3,000 MHz. Signals that are at only one spot on the radio dial (narrow-band signals) are the signature of an intelligent transmission. The spectrum searched by Phoenix is broken into very narrow 1 Hz-wide channels. Two billion channels are examined for each target star.

Observations are currently being made during two three-week sessions each year using the 1,000-foot radio telescope at Arecibo, in Puerto Rico.

By mid-1999, Phoenix had examined about half of the stars on its hit list. So far, no clearly extraterrestrial transmissions have been found.

The Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence includes other expensive endeavours. Voyager 1 anyone?

Jupiter's Great Red Spot

Jupiter's Great Red Spot
Image taken by Voyager 1 on Feb. 25, 1979


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Universal Time

Most cosmological theories imply that the universe is expanding, with the galaxies receding from one another (as is made plausible by observations of the red shifts of their spectra), and that the universe as it is known originated in a primeval explosion at a date of the order of 15,000,000,000 years ago.

In 1929, the astronomer Edwin Hubble, (b. Nov. 20, 1889, Marshfield, Mo., U.S., d. Sept. 28, 1953, San Marino, Calif.) found that on the average nebulas are moving away from the Earth with a velocity proportional to their distance. Hubble's velocity-distance relation suggested that the universe of galactic nebulas is expanding, starting from an initial state about 2,000,000,000 years ago in which all matter was contained in a fairly small volume.

In the 1940s, the physicist George Gamow, (b. March 4, 1904, Odessa, Russian Empire, d. Aug. 19, 1968, Boulder, Colo., U.S.) proposed that the universe began in a state of extremely high temperature and density and exploded outward - the so-called big bang. In 1948, Gamow's students Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman estimated the radiation left over from the big bang should by now have cooled down to a temperature just a few degrees above absolute zero (0 K, or -459 F).

In 1965, the predicted cosmic background radiation was discovered by Arno A. Penzias and Robert W. Wilson of the Bell Telephone Laboratories as part of an effort to build sensitive microwave-receiving stations for satellite communication. Their finding provided unexpected evidence for the idea that the universe was in a state of very high temperature and density sometime between 10,000,000,000 and 20,000,000,000 years ago.

Alpha Centauri is a triple star, the faintest component of which, Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf, is the closest star to the Sun, about 4.3 light-years' distance. The two brighter components are about 1/10 light-year farther from the Sun. The brightest component star resembles the Sun in spectral type, diameter, and absolute magnitude. The second brightest component is a redder star.

In the words of Carl Sagan, there are "billions and billions" of stars in the universe, some of which probably have life-sustaining planets, some of which may have intelligent life as we know it. SETI is listening for radio signals that travel at the speed of light.

Say that an Alpha Centauri planet has intelligent life with Earth-like technologies developed to the same level. The question, "Are you ignoring us deliberately or what?" would require about 9 years to answer (assuming they understand English).



MyCn18, a young planetary nebula located about 8,000 light-years away,
taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2
aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope


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Earth Time

The solar system took shape 4,600,000,000 years ago, when it condensed within a large cloud of gas and dust. The age has been derived from measurements of radioactivity in meteorites, lunar samples, and the Earth's crust, of the isotopes of uranium, thorium, and rubidium and their decay products, lead and strontium.

The evolution of the Sun should continue on the same path as that taken by most stars. As the core hydrogen is used up, the nuclear burning will take place in a growing shell surrounding the exhausted core. The Sun will enter the red giant phase, producing an enormous shell that may extend as far as Venus or even the Earth. About 5,000,000,000 years will pass before this catastrophe occurs.

Dinosaur is the common name given to any of certain extinct reptiles, often very large, which thrived worldwide for 150 million years and that died out at the end of the Mesozoic Era, about 66.4 million years ago. The popular name comes from the Greek words deinos (terrible) and sauros (lizard).

Their remains are found in sedimentary rock strata laid down over a period ranging from roughly the Middle Triassic Epoch to the end of the Cretaceous. It is widely believed that all dinosaurs died out at the same time - apparently quite suddenly at the end of the Cretaceous Period.

Homo sapiens is the genus and species to which all modern human beings (Homo sapiens sapiens) belong, and to which are attributable fossil remains of humans perhaps as much as 400,000 years old.

Homo sapiens is distinguished from other animals and from earlier hominid species by characteristics and habits such as bipedal stance and gait, large brain capacity, high forehead, small teeth and jaw, defined chin, construction and use of tools, and ability to make use of symbols such as language and writing. Homo sapiens, "man the wise", is the only currently existing species of the genus Homo.

The Industrial Revolution, in modern history, is the process of change from an agrarian, handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacture. This process began in England in the 18th century and from there spread to other parts of the world. Although used earlier by French writers, the term Industrial Revolution was first popularized by the English economic historian Arnold Toynbee (1852-83) to describe England's economic development from 1760 to 1840. Since Toynbee's time the term has been more broadly applied.

In the interval 1960-80, space missions to Mars were undertaken by the U.S. and the Soviets. The central theme of the U.S. Viking missions was the search for extraterrestrial life. Viking 1 landed in the region of Chryse Planitia (22 N, 48 W) on July 20, 1976 and the first colour image of the Martian surface was transmitted on July 26. No unequivocal evidence of biological activity was found.



First colour image from Mars (edited)



"Mars had to attack Earth !
Earthlings dumped junk in a restricted area,
photographed sensitive defence installations
and an Earth robot was observed speeding in a school zone."


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