Universe Today takes a look at how the SETI Institute plans to market humanity to alien species. The institute has a Director of Interstellar Composition - the individual repsonsible for crafting humanity's message to any aliens that may be lurking in the neighborhood.
If we're going to be communicating with aliens, we'll want to be careful about the words we choose. Get it right, and we've got extraterrestrial friends, here to uplift us to the galactic community. Get it wrong and we might be looking at radio silence, or worse…"
Worse means the Klingons begin the invasion I guess. Hopefully we run into the Vulcans and make a good first impression. Obviously, humanity has more, shall we say, colorful episodes in our history that may damage that impression. However, the man with the job at SETI, Douglas Vakoch, believes honsety is the best policy, and I would have to agree if we intend on maintaining a long term relationship (hopefully diplomatic, cultural and technological exchanges, rather than the ray gun kind) with any other intelligent species that may be out there. Our flaws, after all, are what really make us human.
Showing posts with label Alien life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alien life. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Thursday, April 12, 2007
New Twist In Alien Search
via Space.com
A new twist in where we might go looking for those Vulcans and Klingons. Past searches of other solar systems have focused on Sun like G sequence stars, but scientists now think that M sequence stars might also be good candidates for harboring other life and alien civilizations. Rationale? M class stars can live far longer than G class stars - over ten times longer, in fact, and M class stars are the most common stellar type in the universe.
“M stars are the most accessible, yet challenging, targets for habitable zone terrestrial planet searches,” says journal Editor-in-Chief, Sherry L. Cady, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Geology at Portland State University. “The potential for M Star habitable zone planets to evolve biospheres and retain them are but two of the many reasons to include M stars in the search for evidence of life beyond the confines of Earth.”
Current discoveries of exoplanets around G type stars haven't been terribly promising, many have so called "hot Jupiters" near the star that would either limit or eliminate the formation of terrestrial type planets from forming around the star. With the long life expectancy of M type stars (100 billion years) the possibility of life developing at some point over that period would have to be pretty high for any planet in such a star's habitable zone.
Cool.
A new twist in where we might go looking for those Vulcans and Klingons. Past searches of other solar systems have focused on Sun like G sequence stars, but scientists now think that M sequence stars might also be good candidates for harboring other life and alien civilizations. Rationale? M class stars can live far longer than G class stars - over ten times longer, in fact, and M class stars are the most common stellar type in the universe.
“M stars are the most accessible, yet challenging, targets for habitable zone terrestrial planet searches,” says journal Editor-in-Chief, Sherry L. Cady, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Geology at Portland State University. “The potential for M Star habitable zone planets to evolve biospheres and retain them are but two of the many reasons to include M stars in the search for evidence of life beyond the confines of Earth.”
Current discoveries of exoplanets around G type stars haven't been terribly promising, many have so called "hot Jupiters" near the star that would either limit or eliminate the formation of terrestrial type planets from forming around the star. With the long life expectancy of M type stars (100 billion years) the possibility of life developing at some point over that period would have to be pretty high for any planet in such a star's habitable zone.
Cool.
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