© Mark Ollig
Yes, ET, as in extraterrestrial intelligence.
Nearly 60 years ago, a serious attempt to detect interstellar radio transmissions sent by intelligent beings living on planets orbiting stars other than our own began.
It was called Project Ozma.
Astronomers believe the Milky Way galaxy (where we live) contains 200 billion stars.
Two years ago, astronomers learned the Milky Way is a much bigger place than previously thought.
It would take 200,000 years in a spaceship traveling the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) to cross our galaxy.
The Hubble Space Telescope has identified some 100 billion galaxies. Future telescopes will no doubt detect many more.
Indeed, the universe is a big place.
As of March 2, NASA has confirmed 4,126 exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system circling a star similarly to how Earth orbits the sun.
So far, 161 of these exoplanets are classified as terrestrial, meaning they are rocky, with iron-rich cores, like Earth.
“I search for exoplanets because I want to know whether there’s another Earth-like world out there, and whether life could exist outside our solar system,” said Matthew Smith, systems engineer for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The first Earth-size habitable-zone planet was discovered Jan. 7, by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, TESS, launched April 18, 2018.
The two-year mission for TESS (which officially ends next month) is to survey 200,000 of the brightest stars near the sun to search for transiting exoplanets.
NASA’s website for exoplanet exploration is https://exoplanets.nasa.gov.
In 1959, an article in the magazine, “Nature,” took a serious-minded look at searching for interstellar radio communications originating from worlds other than our own.
“Near some star rather like the Sun, there are civilizations, with scientific interests and with technical possibilities much greater than those now available to us,” the article stated.
So, in other words, the article suggests there are civilizations out there more technically-advanced than we are.
Maybe.
I suppose a much older-than-Earth exoplanet where the conditions were present for life – intelligent life – to evolve may have developed technology far superior to where we are currently.
The 1959 article got the public thinking, especially Frank Drake, who is an astronomer and astrophysicist.
Drake wanted astronomers to scan the sky and listen for radio and television signal patterns emanating from outside of our world using the latest technology.
In April 1960, Drake started Project Ozma, using a radio telescope at the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank, WV.
In addition to radio and television signals, they also searched for mathematical prime numbers in a message. This would indicate an intelligent origin.
One surprise did occur when astronomers discovered a repeated series of uniformly patterned pulses indicating a message of intelligence.
I can only imagine the excitement by the astronomers when this distinct pattern of radio pulses was discovered.
To their disappointment, the pattern ended up being radio signals caused by a secret US military experiment.
Unfortunately, Project Ozma only lasted four months.
Project Ozma is remembered as being historically significant, because it was our first serious attempt to answer the question, “Are we alone in the universe?”
During the 1960s and early 1970s, NASA supported the search for extraterrestrial radio signals with Project Orion, the Microwave Observing Project, and an effort called Toward Other Planetary Systems.
In 1974, Frank Drake created the Arecibo message.
The digital message consists of 1,679 bits, arranged into 73 lines of 23 characters per line. Its binary “ones” and “zeroes” code were transmitted by frequency shifting at the rate of 10 bits per second.
The Arecibo message was beamed into the M13 Global Star Cluster located on the edge of the Milky Way, some 25,000 light-years away from Earth.
The radio message was broadcast on a frequency of 2,380 MHz, using 1 million watts of power from the Arecibo radio telescope and transmitting antenna dish located in Puerto Rico.
Included in this interstellar message are the digits 1 to 10, the formula for deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a graphical stick figure outline of a human, Earth’s population in 1974 (3.9 billion), our understanding of the essential elements of life, and an illustration of our solar system.
The transmission of the Arecibo message took less than three minutes.
You can view the Arecibo message on the Cornell University web page at https://bit.ly/2TzFx6P.
In 1984, another serious attempt to look for extraterrestrial intelligence began, with the formation of Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) started by astronomer Carl Sagan, and Drake.
In 1992, NASA started an intensive program to search for other worldly intelligence; however, Congress soon canceled this program.
Sept. 19, 1959, “Nature” magazine published “Searching for Interstellar Communications,” written by Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison.
It can be read at https://bit.ly/32ORSsb.
Is there intelligent life living on other planets out there in the universe?
“Contact” is a movie from 1997, and is one of my favorites. It is based on the 1985 book written by Carl Sagan.
In the book, Sagan wrote, “The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, it seems like an awful waste of space.”
I agree, Carl
Yes, ET, as in extraterrestrial intelligence.
Nearly 60 years ago, a serious attempt to detect interstellar radio transmissions sent by intelligent beings living on planets orbiting stars other than our own began.
It was called Project Ozma.
Astronomers believe the Milky Way galaxy (where we live) contains 200 billion stars.
Two years ago, astronomers learned the Milky Way is a much bigger place than previously thought.
It would take 200,000 years in a spaceship traveling the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) to cross our galaxy.
The Hubble Space Telescope has identified some 100 billion galaxies. Future telescopes will no doubt detect many more.
Indeed, the universe is a big place.
As of March 2, NASA has confirmed 4,126 exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system circling a star similarly to how Earth orbits the sun.
So far, 161 of these exoplanets are classified as terrestrial, meaning they are rocky, with iron-rich cores, like Earth.
“I search for exoplanets because I want to know whether there’s another Earth-like world out there, and whether life could exist outside our solar system,” said Matthew Smith, systems engineer for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The first Earth-size habitable-zone planet was discovered Jan. 7, by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, TESS, launched April 18, 2018.
The two-year mission for TESS (which officially ends next month) is to survey 200,000 of the brightest stars near the sun to search for transiting exoplanets.
NASA’s website for exoplanet exploration is https://exoplanets.nasa.gov.
In 1959, an article in the magazine, “Nature,” took a serious-minded look at searching for interstellar radio communications originating from worlds other than our own.
“Near some star rather like the Sun, there are civilizations, with scientific interests and with technical possibilities much greater than those now available to us,” the article stated.
So, in other words, the article suggests there are civilizations out there more technically-advanced than we are.
Maybe.
I suppose a much older-than-Earth exoplanet where the conditions were present for life – intelligent life – to evolve may have developed technology far superior to where we are currently.
The 1959 article got the public thinking, especially Frank Drake, who is an astronomer and astrophysicist.
Drake wanted astronomers to scan the sky and listen for radio and television signal patterns emanating from outside of our world using the latest technology.
In April 1960, Drake started Project Ozma, using a radio telescope at the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank, WV.
In addition to radio and television signals, they also searched for mathematical prime numbers in a message. This would indicate an intelligent origin.
One surprise did occur when astronomers discovered a repeated series of uniformly patterned pulses indicating a message of intelligence.
I can only imagine the excitement by the astronomers when this distinct pattern of radio pulses was discovered.
To their disappointment, the pattern ended up being radio signals caused by a secret US military experiment.
Unfortunately, Project Ozma only lasted four months.
Project Ozma is remembered as being historically significant, because it was our first serious attempt to answer the question, “Are we alone in the universe?”
During the 1960s and early 1970s, NASA supported the search for extraterrestrial radio signals with Project Orion, the Microwave Observing Project, and an effort called Toward Other Planetary Systems.
In 1974, Frank Drake created the Arecibo message.
The digital message consists of 1,679 bits, arranged into 73 lines of 23 characters per line. Its binary “ones” and “zeroes” code were transmitted by frequency shifting at the rate of 10 bits per second.
The Arecibo message was beamed into the M13 Global Star Cluster located on the edge of the Milky Way, some 25,000 light-years away from Earth.
The radio message was broadcast on a frequency of 2,380 MHz, using 1 million watts of power from the Arecibo radio telescope and transmitting antenna dish located in Puerto Rico.
Included in this interstellar message are the digits 1 to 10, the formula for deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a graphical stick figure outline of a human, Earth’s population in 1974 (3.9 billion), our understanding of the essential elements of life, and an illustration of our solar system.
The transmission of the Arecibo message took less than three minutes.
You can view the Arecibo message on the Cornell University web page at https://bit.ly/2TzFx6P.
In 1984, another serious attempt to look for extraterrestrial intelligence began, with the formation of Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) started by astronomer Carl Sagan, and Drake.
In 1992, NASA started an intensive program to search for other worldly intelligence; however, Congress soon canceled this program.
Sept. 19, 1959, “Nature” magazine published “Searching for Interstellar Communications,” written by Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison.
It can be read at https://bit.ly/32ORSsb.
Is there intelligent life living on other planets out there in the universe?
“Contact” is a movie from 1997, and is one of my favorites. It is based on the 1985 book written by Carl Sagan.
In the book, Sagan wrote, “The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, it seems like an awful waste of space.”
I agree, Carl
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| Radio telescope at the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank, WV used for Project Ozma |
