Are we alone in the universe? Probably not. I for one, believe with all my heart,
that life exists elsewhere. And not just life at its microscopic level, no. I mean intelligent life
flourishing, making giant leaps in technology, using resources from not only their planet,
but also their star, and other stars, nearby. I believe that there is a civilization out there,
that has survived the death of its star, by migrating to another star system.
But belief, falls flat, in the face of absence of evidence. Since the universe is so huge, the
distance between two star-systems, is vast. That makes the distance between two star systems, with
intelligent civilizations, somewhat unfathomable. As such, by our technological standards,
intergalactic travel is still a recipe for science fiction. Maybe our cosmic cousins out there,
even if technologically far more superior than us, are facing the same problem? What if,
traveling at the speed of light, is something no one has wrapped their heads around with?
As such, letting space do the traveling for us is the only option.
And what better way to send messages to the cosmos, than radio signals? But that’s how we
think… An advanced alien civilization’s thinking starts from where ours’ ends.
Welcome to Lab three sixty, it’s time to explore. Alien civilizations may have already arisen,
prospered, and become interplanetary, given the abundance of stars expected to have
planets like Earth, where liquid water, and a moderate atmosphere, support life.
Aliens may find traveling to other planets as simple as going from
home to the nearest Mcdonald's. If this is the case, we may not
need to colonize faraway worlds in order to meet them. They might make an attempt to contact us.
It's both terrifying and intriguing to consider, but how will aliens communicate with humanity?
What would be the most effective manner for a technologically advanced alien civilization
to announce its arrival throughout the galaxy?
It could be to make its star system's planets dance in a mathematical sequence.
Many searches for intelligent life have been carried out thus far,
such as probing for radio signals or megastructures around stars, but the results have
been vague and have natural explanations. That's why a scientist from France has proposed that we
hunt for planets orbiting in precise patterns that could only have evolved purposefully.
Their hypothesis is that a highly evolved civilization could alter the orbits of
planets in its solar system to serve as a beacon of its presence to an observer from the outside.
The gravitational pull of asteroids might be used to slowly move planets into new places
over thousands of years, causing them to have full orbits relative to one another
in a specific fixed ratio, or resonance. Natural gravitational interactions produce
such resonances. For example, Jupiter's moon Io completes four Jupiter orbits for
every two Europa orbits and one Ganymede orbit, forming a 2:1 resonance chain.
Similar patterns have been observed in other star systems, although those
in which the ratios of each body differ rather than creating chains have never been observed.
As a result, the researchers believe aliens may organize their planets
in sequences that are unlikely to occur naturally, such as a prime number series
(1, 2, 3, 5, 7, etc.) or the Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5 and so on).
The researchers calculated that these orbits may persist for 20 billion years
before losing resonance, even surviving the demise of their host star.
The concept is similar to colossal structures on Earth, such as ancient Egypt's tallest pyramids,
which were built to last beyond the lifetime of a civilization.
Similarly, this beacon has the potential to outlast its creators.
Even if we did uncover such a sequence, it wouldn't prove intelligent life,
and it's possible that the civilization behind it has long since vanished.
But the relics of it might still be found.
So what does Humanity do? Do we wait for them, or should we try communicating first?
Upon discovering the existence of intelligent life beyond Earth,
the first question we are most likely to ask is “How can we communicate?”
We are in 2022 now and the question feels more urgent than ever.
Advances in remote sensing technologies have revealed that the vast majority of
stars in our galaxy host planets and that many of these exoplanets appear capable of
hosting liquid water on their surface—a prerequisite for life as we know it.
The odds that at least one of these billions of planets has produced intelligent life
seem favorable enough to spend some time figuring out how to say “hello.”
Space research organizations around the world, along with NASA,
have been in pursuit of making contact with alien life.
But forget making contact, we do not even have proof that alien life actually exists.
Now, a team at NASA is hoping to change that. How? By bending nudes.
We are going to attract aliens by sending them, wait for it,
unsolicited Nudes. Yes, you heard that right! NASA is planning to do so through binary
signals outside the earth’s atmosphere to attract extra-terrestrial intelligence.
An updated, binary-coded message has been developed for transmission to extra-terrestrial
intelligence in the milky way galaxy. The message includes basic mathematical
and physical concepts to establish a universal means of communication followed by information
on the biochemical composition of life on earth and the solar system’s time-stamped position
in the milky way relative to global clusters. The project is known as the Beacon in the Galaxy
and it shows the various diagrams related to the biochemistry of life on Earth
and two cartoons of the male and the female body with exposed genitals.
The entire message is in binary code as it is the most basic form of digital communication.
Messaging extra-terrestrials has always occupied a controversial
position in the broader SETI (search for extra-terrestrial intelligence) community,
which is mostly focused on listening for alien transmissions rather than sending out our own.
To many, the practice is a waste of time at best and an existentially dangerous gamble at worst.
Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest physicists ever, once warned that aliens "may not see us
as any more valuable than we see bacteria." "If you look at history, contact between humans
and less intelligent organisms have often been disastrous from their point of view,
and encounters between civilizations with advanced versus primitive technologies have
gone badly for the less advanced," he had said. Hawking went on to say that aliens could
be vastly more powerful than us and contacting them is not the best idea.
But, we are a curious species and we will always want to know
what is out there, even if it is dangerous. There are billions of targets to choose from,
and the odds that we send a message to the right planet at the right time are dismally low.
Plus, we have no idea who may be listening. What if we give our address to an alien species
that lives on a diet of bipedal hominins? Despite the pitfalls, many insist that the
potential rewards of active SETI far outweigh the risks.
First contact would be one of the most momentous occasions in the history of our species,
the argument goes, and if we just wait around for someone to call us, it may never happen. As for
the risk of annihilation by a malevolent space alien: We blew our cover long ago.
Any extra-terrestrial capable of traveling to Earth would be more than capable of detecting
evidence of life in the chemical signatures of our atmosphere or the electromagnetic radiation
that has been leaking from our radios, televisions and radar systems for the past century.
So the question remains: should we send messages to aliens?
Just because it would be difficult to achieve a global consensus
on what to send or whether we should send, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.
To finally know that we are not alone in the universe, would not just encourage science,
but our understanding about life, and its place in the cosmos as well.
What do you guys think? Drop in your comments below,
and don’t forget to subscribe to Lab 360 for more such videos from the world of astronomy.