Space
Alien civilizations could send us messages by 2029
Humans have used radio waves to communicate across Earth for more
than 100 years. Those waves also leak out into space, a fingerprint of
our presence propagating through the cosmos.
In
more recent years, humans have also sent out a stronger signal beyond
our planet: communications with our most distant probes, like the famous
Voyager spacecraft.
According to popsci.com,
scientists recently traced the paths of these powerful radio
transmissions from Earth to multiple far-away spacecraft and determined
which stars—along with any planets with possible alien life around
them—are best positioned to intercept those messages.
The research
team created a list of stars that will encounter Earth’s signals within
the next century and found that alien civilizations (if they’re out
there) could send a return message as soon as 2029. Their results were
published on March 20 in the journal Publications of the Astronomical
Society of the Pacific.
“This
is a famous idea from Carl Sagan, who used it as a plot theme in the
movie Contact,” explains Howard Isaacson, a University of California,
Berkeley astronomer and co-author of the new work.
However, it’s
worth taking any study involving extraterrestrial life with a grain of
salt. Kaitlin Rasmussen, an astrobiologist at the University of
Washington not affiliated with the paper, calls this study “an
interesting exercise, but unlikely to yield results.” The results, in
this case, would be aliens contacting Earth within a certain timeframe.
As
radio signals travel through space, they spread out and become weaker
and harder to detect. Aliens parked around a nearby star probably won’t
notice the faint leakage from TVs and other small devices.
However,
the commands we send to trailblazing probes at the edge of the solar
system—Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, and New
Horizons—require a much more focused and powerful broadcast from NASA’s
Deep Space Network (DSN), a global array of radio dishes designed for
space communications.
The
DSN signals don’t magically stop at the spacecraft they’re targeting:
They continue into interstellar space where they eventually reach other
stars.
But electromagnetic waves like radio transmissions and
light can only travel so fast—that’s why we use light-years to measure
distances across the universe. The researchers used this law of physics
to estimate how long it will take for DSN signals to reach nearby stars,
and for alien life to return the message.
The process revealed
several insights. For example, according to their calculations, a signal
sent to Pioneer 10 reached a dead star known as a white dwarf around 27
light-years away in 2002. The study team estimates a return message
from any alien life near this dead star could reach us as soon as 2029,
but no earlier.
More opportunities for return messages will pop up
in the next decade. Signals sent to Voyager 2 around 1980 and 1983
reached two stars in 2007: one that’s 26 light-years away and a brown
dwarf that’s 24 light-years away, respectively. If aliens sent a message
right back from either, it could reach Earth in the early 2030s.
This
work “gives Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence researchers a more
narrow group of stars to focus on,” says lead author Reilly Derrick, a
University of California, Los Angeles engineering student.
Derrick
and Isaacson propose that radio astronomers could use their star lists
to listen for return messages at predetermined times. For example, in
2029 they may want to point some of Earth’s major radio telescopes
towards the white dwarf that received Pioneer 10’s message.
But
other astronomers are skeptical. “If a response were to be sent, our
ability to detect it would depend on many factors,” says Macy Huston, an
astronomer at Penn State not involved in the new study. These factors
include “how long or often we monitor the star for a response, and how
long or often the return signal is transmitted.”
Our radio transmissions have only reached one-millionth of the volume of the Milky Way.
There
are still many unknowns when considering alien life. In particular,
astronomers aren’t certain the stars in this study even have
planets—although based on other exoplanet studies, it’s likely that at
least a fraction of them do. The signals from the DSN are also still
incredibly weak at such large distances, so it’s unclear how plausible
it is for other stars to detect our transmissions.
“Our puny and
infrequent transmissions are unlikely to yield a detection of humanity
by extraterrestrials,” says Jean-Luc Margot, a University of California,
Los Angeles radio astronomer who was not involved in the recent paper.
He explains that our radio transmissions have only reached one-millionth
of the volume of the Milky Way.
“The probability that another
civilization resides in this tiny bubble is extraordinarily small unless
there are millions of civilizations in the Milky Way,” he says. But if
they’re out there, there might be a time and place to capture the
evidence.
Source: popsci.com
An organization of civilian volunteers dedicated to the study of
unidentified flying objects (UFOs) has issued a statement based on
decades of studying eyewitness reports. According to Mutual UFO Network,
“alien bases” may be hiding off the coast of Alaska, reports the-sun.com.
Researchers
say the deep waters in this region may hold something surprising. After
analyzing reports from the ship’s crew from 1945, they hypothesized
that alien objects could be lurking underwater, off the coast of the
state.
Alleged sightings of alien spacecraft nearly 80 years ago
have become a key point in research. Members of the organization believe
that UFOs move over water and may have “bases.”
Researchers
allege crew members on a U.S. Army transporter ship sailing past Island
Adak saw a massive UFO sized 150 to 200 feet emerge from the water.
Although these reports are nowhere to be found, UFO enthusiasts believe
the unidentified flying vehicles likely were used to commute to
different supposed alien bases hiding in the deep waters.
As
the “secret reports” of the sailors aren’t available, investigators
have taken it upon themselves to unravel the mystery surrounding the
unidentified flying objects and they believe the ocean has alien bases
that humans aren’t aware of.
Enthusiasts claim that UFOs may be
using “underwater networks” or wormholes as superhighways to travel
between points in the universe. UFO researcher Johnny Enoch added that
such objects could serve as a vehicle for aliens.
There are also
theories that other places on Earth could serve as bases for alien life.
A mountain in Seoul, South Korea is believed to be hiding a UFO,
according to Dr. Steven Greer.
An episode of the series “The
Alaska Triangle” features satellite imagery that claims to show one of
the “alien bases” in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.
Meanwhile,
another researcher featured in the program showed markings from the sea
bed that she claimed could have been roadways for aliens.
While
the mysteries of the ocean remain unsolved, researchers continue their
search, trying to unravel the mystery of what may be hiding in the
depths of the waters off the coast of Alaska.
A volcanic comet the size of a mid-sized US city has
violently exploded for the second time in four months as it continues
racing toward the earth. And following the massive eruption, the cloud
of ice and gas sprouted what looked like a pair of gigantic devil horns.
The city-sized comet, named 12P/Pons-Brooks, is a cryovolcanic — or
cold volcano — comet. It has a solid nucleus, with an estimated diameter
of 18.6 miles, and is filled with a mix of ice, dust and gas known as
cryomagma. The nucleus is surrounded by a fuzzy cloud of gas called a
coma, which leaks out of the comet’s interior.
When solar radiation heats the comet’s insides, the pressure builds up
and the comet violently explodes, ejaculating its ice-cold innards into
space through seeping cracks in the nucleus’s shell.
Live Science report:
On Oct. 5, astronomers detected a large outburst from 12P, after the
comet became dozens of times brighter due to the extra light reflecting
from its expanded coma, according to the British Astronomical Association (BAA), which has been closely monitoring the comet
Over the next few days, the comet’s coma expanded further and developed its “peculiar horns,” Spaceweather.com
reported. Some experts joked that the irregular shape of the coma also
makes the comet look like a science fiction spaceship, such as the
Millennium Falcon from Star Wars.
The unusual shape of the comet’s coma is likely due to an irregularity in the shape of 12P’s nucleus, Richard Miles, a BAA astronomer, told Live Science after the comet’s previous eruption.
The outflowing gas is likely being partially obstructed by a notch
sticking out on the nucleus, Miles said. As the gas continues to expand
away from the comet, the irregularity in the coma’s shape becomes more
defined and noticeable, he added.
12P is currently hurtling toward the inner solar system, where it
will be slingshotted around the sun on its highly elliptical 71-year
orbit around our home star — similar to the green comet Nishimura, which
pulled off a near-identical maneuver on Sept. 17.
12P will reach its closest point to Earth on April 21, 2024, when it
may become visible to the naked eye before being catapulted back toward
the outer solar system. It will not return until 2095.
This is the second time 12P has sprouted its horns this year. On July
20, astronomers witnessed the comet blow its top for the first time in
69 years (mainly due to its outbursts being less frequent and harder to
spot during the rest of its orbit). On that occasion, 12P’s coma grew to
around 143,000 miles (230,000 km), which is around 7,000 times wider
than the comet’s nucleus.
It is unclear how large the coma grew during the most recent
eruption, but there are signs the outburst was “twice as intense” as the
previous one, the BAA noted. By now, the coma has likely shrunk back to
near its normal size.
As 12P continues to race toward the sun, there is a high probability
that we will witness several more major eruptions. It is possible that
those eruptions will be even bigger than the most recent one as the
comet soaks up more solar radiation, according to Spaceweather.com.
But 12P is not the only volcanic comet that astronomers are currently
monitoring: 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann (29P) — the most volatile volcanic
comet in the solar system — has also had several noticeable eruptions
in the last year.
In December 2022, 29P experienced its largest eruption in around 12 years, which sprayed around 1 million tons of cryomagma into space. And in April this year, for the first time ever, scientists accurately predicted one of 29P’s eruptions before it actually happened, thanks to a slight increase in the comet’s brightness in the lead-up to the icy explosion.
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