The hunt for alien civilizations

[caltrek]

Harvard Astrophysics Professor Claims He Found ET Tech Inside a Meteor
by Brandon Gage
July 8, 2023

Introduction:

(Alternet) Harvard University Professor of Astrophysics Avi Loeb claimed to CBS News on Friday that he discovered pieces of extraterrestrial technology inside a meteor that crashed near Papua New Guinea in 2014.

…
Further extract:

CBS reported that United State Space Command confirmed "with almost near certainty, 99.999%, that it came from another solar system." But a rock from deep space was not the only enticing discovery that Loeb believes that he and his team made.

"We found ten spherules. These are almost perfect spheres, or metallic marbles. When you look at them through a microscope, they look very distinct from the background," Loeb explained to CBS. "They have colors of gold, blue, brown and some of them resemble a miniature of the Earth."

The object, Loeb continued, "has material strength that is tougher than all space rock that were seen before, and cataloged by" the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

"We calculated its speed outside the solar system," Loeb added of the fallen cosmic debris. "It was 60 km per second, which is faster than 95% of all stars in the vicinity of the sun. The fact that it was made of materials tougher than even iron meteorites, and moving faster than 95% of all stars in the vicinity of the sun, suggested potentially it could be a spacecraft from another civilization, or some technological gadget."

Read more here: https://www.alternet.org/harvard-astro ... t-meteor/

[caltrek]

Are Extraterrestrials Listening In On Our Phone Conversations?
by Kelly Kowalski
September 9, 2023

Introduction:

For the past century, we’ve inadvertently broadcast our presence to an estimated 75 nearby star systems. About a quarter of those stars have confirmed exoplanets orbiting in the habitable zone. A few may be harboring intelligent life capable of receiving our long-ago leaked transmissions. But what kind of emissions are seeping into space now? Could extraterrestrials detect our satellite pings around the globe, and could they be listening in on our cellphone conversations?

To figure out our latest leakage, a radio astronomy team is building a model of Earth’s technosignatures, the technological byproducts we radiate into space. The last time scientists simulated Earth’s emissions, Farrah Fawcett chased TV criminals on Charlie’s Angels, and ABBA debuted on Top of the Pops. Nowadays, billions of mobile devices stream gigabytes of content across continents, beaming an undulating pattern of broadband signatures as our planet cycles through night and day.

Further Extracts:

Incorporating geolocation data from OpenCelliD’s crowd-sourced software, the team mapped out 30 million cellphone towers around the globe. Averaging each cell site’s frequency range and wattage, they collated peak power output from the mobile towers’ antenna beams that stretch sideways toward our horizon. Then, factoring in some theoretical alien observers from three nearby star systems, what emerged is a wavy pattern of radio leakage as the mobile towers rise and set with the Earth’s rotation.
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The team’s findings revealed that a red dwarf about 8 light-years away, labeled blandly HD95735, receives our most potent emissions, 4 gigawatts gleaming on the horizon from mobile towers in China and the US. Staring at our equator is Barnard’s Star, a red dwarf about 6 light-years away with a confirmed exoplanet, and glaring at our southern hemisphere is Alpha Centauri A, a sun within a three-body star system about 4 light-years away. The team determined these stars might pick up about 3 gigawatts of tower transmissions leaked from parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.

Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/are-extrat ... ons-70582

[weatheriscool]

Scientists suggest use of data-driven approach to look for life on other planets
https://phys.org/news/2023-09-scientist ... anets.html
by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

A large team of scientists with a wide variety of backgrounds has joined together to suggest that a data-driven approach to search for life elsewhere in the universe should replace methods now in use. In their paper posted on the arXiv preprint server, the group explains how a data-driven approach could help prevent human-centered biases from overlooking potential signs of life.

Over the past few decades, scientists have become much more open to the possibility of discovering life in places other than on Earth. And because of that, more work has been done to find life—or at least signs of it. But, as the group on this new effort points out, most such approaches tend to expect that other forms of life will resemble those found on Earth. And that could be blinding scientists to signs of life that might be there but are being missed.

[caltrek]

Scientists Develop Method of Identifying Life on Other Worlds
September 25, 2023

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) Humankind is looking for life on other planets, but how will we recognise it when we see it? Now a group of US scientists have developed an artificial-intelligence-based system which gives 90% accuracy in discovering signs of life.

The work was presented to scientists for the first time at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference in Lyon on Friday 14th July, where it received a positive reception from others working in the field. The details have now been published in the peer-reviewed journal PNAS (see notes in link for details).

Lead researcher Professor Robert Hazen, of the Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory and George Mason University. Said “This is a significant advance in our abilities to recognise biochemical signs of life on other worlds. It opens the way to using smart sensors on unmanned spaceships to search for signs of life”.

Since the early 1950’s scientists have known that given the right conditions, mixing simple chemicals can form some of the more complex molecules required for life, such as amino acids. Since then, many more of the components necessary for life, such as the nucleotides needed to make DNA, have been detected in space. But how do we know if these are of biological origin, or if they are made by another abiotic process over time. Without knowing that, we don’t know if we have detected life.

Bob Hazen said “We are asking a fundamental question; Is there something fundamentally different about the chemistry of life compared to the chemistry of the inanimate world? Are there “chemical rules of life” that influence the diversity and distribution of biomolecules? Can we deduce those rules and use them to guide our efforts to model life’s origins or to detect subtle signs of life on other worlds? We found that there is.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1002314

[caltrek]

SETI Research Say Aliens Could Use Black Holes as Quantum Computers
by Kiona Smith
December 21, 2023

Introduction:

(Inverse) We’ve searched the skies for alien signals in the form of radio waves and reflected light from massive orbiting structures. But physicists Gia Dvali (of the Max Planck Institute for Physics) and Zara Osmanov (of the Free University of Tblisi) say we should also be looking for neutrinos and bursts of radiation from tiny black holes spawned as alien supercomputers.

Dvali and Osmanov suggest, in a recent paper, that technologically-advanced aliens (if they’re out there) might use small black holes as hardware for their quantum computers. And with telescopes like IceCube, we might be able to detect the output of those alien computer programs.

They published their work in the International Journal of Astrobiology.

Read more of the Inverse article here: https://www.inverse.com/science/aliens ... adiation

For the publication by the International Journal of Astrobiology: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journal ... D5AC81C90

[caltrek]

COSMIC: The SETI Institute Is Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe with Breakthrough Technology at the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array
January 8, 2024

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) January 8, 2024, Mountain View, CA -- In a groundbreaking cosmic quest, the SETI Institute’s Commensal Open-Source Multimode Interferometer Cluster (COSMIC) at the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) is expanding the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). This cutting-edge technology is not a distinct telescope; it’s a detector. COSMIC searches for extraterrestrial signals and paves the way for future science using a copy of the raw data from the telescope’s observations. At the heart of COSMIC’s mission is pursuing the age old question: Are we alone in the universe? Project scientist Dr. Chenoa Tremblay and the team detailed the project in a paper published in The Astronomical Journal.

What sets COSMIC apart is its adaptability to the future. The system is designed for future upgrades, ensuring it remains at the forefront of cosmic exploration. With the potential to expand its capabilities, COSMIC could soon cover more stars, explore new frequencies, and enhance our understanding of the vast cosmic tapestry. It is important to note that COSMIC’s capabilities go beyond searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. Future upgrades could unlock new explorations, from finding fast radio bursts with a submillisecond temporal resolution to studying spectral line science and axionic dark matter.

“COSMIC introduces modern Ethernet-based digital architecture on the VLA, allowing for a test bed for future technologies as we move into the next generation era,” said Tremblay. “Currently, the focus is on creating one of the largest surveys for technological signals, with over 500,000 sources observed in the first six months. However, the flexibility of the design allows for a wide range of other scientific opportunities, such as studying fast radio burst pulse structures and searching for axion dark matter candidates. We hope to open opportunities for other scientists to use our high time (nanoseconds) or our high spectral resolution (sub-Hz) to complete their research. It is an exciting time for increasing the capabilities of this historic telescope.”

COSMIC stands on the shoulders of giants like Project Phoenix, with the capacity to search millions of stars and the potential to expand to tens of millions—a leap in scope and sensitivity.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1030547

caltrek’s comment: This reminds me of a point made by Carl Sagan, that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence may also result in other unanticipated scientific discoveries otherwise unrelated to the actual existence of alien life.

[firestar464]

Research Sheds Light on Why Advanced Extraterrestrial Civilizations May Be Confined to Their Planets

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo ... r-BB1j0CtN

[firestar464]

And back to our regular scheduled programming.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/di ... i-AA1nJh3N