{"id":2764,"date":"2022-06-17T16:21:28","date_gmt":"2022-06-17T16:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theyexist.space\/?p=2764"},"modified":"2022-06-17T16:34:16","modified_gmt":"2022-06-17T16:34:16","slug":"why-we-shouldnt-fear-the-search-for-alien-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theyexist.space\/why-we-shouldnt-fear-the-search-for-alien-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Why we shouldn’t fear the search for alien life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"AlienTelescopeArray-TheyExist\"
These antennas, each about 20 feet in diameter, are part of the Allen Telescope Array, in the California Cascades about 250 miles north of San Francisco. The Array, which has 42 antennas in total, was built by the SETI Institute to be optimized for its searches for extraterrestrial transmissions.Seth Shostak \/ SETI<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

But rather than hope that the extraterrestrials have launched signals our way, let’s knock on their door \u2014 and get their attention.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

June 16, 2022, 3:31 AM CDTBy Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more than six decades, a small group of scientists (including me), has been trying to pick up radio transmissions from other planetary systems<\/a>, motivated by the fact that doing so would demonstrate that someone intelligent is out there. This effort, known as SETI (the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence),<\/a> is straightforward and technically fairly simple, as it doesn\u2019t require interstellar travel for either the aliens or the earthlings. It\u2019s a strictly passive endeavor that uses big antennas with highly sensitive receivers to sniff out signals over a broad range of the radio dial. Case in point: Reports this week say Chinese researchers may have picked up signs of alien civilizations (or maybe it was just radio interference.)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rather than hope that the extraterrestrials have launched signals our way, maybe we could knock on their door and get their attention.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In any case, some researchers believe we should be taking a more active<\/em> role in probing nearby space. They argue we should prod the aliens with signals of our own, inviting them to respond; an idea known as \u201cactive SETI.\u201d<\/a> Rather than hope that the extraterrestrials have launched signals our way, maybe we could knock on their door and get their attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In practice this amounts to sequentially aiming a powerful radio transmitter at one star system after another while transmitting a friendly message (perhaps similar to the engraved plaque that was affixed to the Pioneer space probes in the 1970s) that, one hopes, will trigger a similarly friendly response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sounds straightforward, but it still requires some decisions to be made. To begin with, how do we encode the message in a way that space aliens, whose English-speaking abilities are surely sub-par, will understand? In addition, what information should we transmit? Shakespeare\u2019s plays? The books of the \u201cHarvard five-foot shelf\u201d?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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