We have been accidentally leaking radio waves into space 126 years Do not consider the consequences. If there is a neighboring civilization with a sensitive radio telescope within a hundred light years, they may already know us. How soon should we expect them to contact?
We can expect two types of responses. Faster ones will involve electromagnetic signals, such as radio waves moving at the speed of light. But this means that it will take until the 22nd century to discover a civilization that is nearly 100 light-years away from the earth.The slower response will involve chemically propelled rockets, such as Voyager One and 2 Either New horizons, Our civilization has sent a trajectory to bring them into interstellar space. If the respondent chooses to use them, a 100-light-year “short-distance” journey will take millions of years.This means we still have a waiting time as long as it passes Humanity It first appeared on Earth before we witnessed the arrival of the chemically propelled aircraft in response to the detection of our television and radio broadcasts. In the spirit of the Starshot concept, the travel time can be greatly shortened by pushing the alien sail to the relativistic speed through light, but it still takes a lot of time.
But this assumes that the alien civilization is in the same technological development stage as us, but Copernicus Principle, Assert that we are not special in any respect, otherwise say. We have the technology to reach other stars for only about a century, which is only a small part of Earth’s history; the possibility that another planet is at the same point in its own development is more than 10 million. In order to encounter one, we must include a space containing more than ten million stars. Given the local density of stars, this means that the signal must travel a distance of at least a thousand light years. This in turn requires more than two thousand years of two-way light travel time. In other words, we will not get a response before 4000, even at the speed of light.
However, there is another way of looking at it. This is the conclusion of a paper we recently submitted for publication with my student Amir Siraj. We asked: What if an advanced technological civilization appeared millions of years ago and had traveled through interstellar space long before realizing our existence?Our own astronomers are eager to study possible habitable exoplanets, such as planet Around the nearest star, Proxima CentauriBefore there are any signs that technological civilization may have appeared on Proxima b, we may easily decide to visit it with our spacecraft. In a similar way, will interstellar vehicles now approach us unexpectedly, because their creators discovered that the earth is a habitable planet long ago and decided to come and take a look?
The only way to find out is to look for unusual objects in the sky.This is the reason behind Galileo Project, Co-founded with my lead colleague Frank Laukien. The project was publicly announced on July 26, 2021 as a research effort to collect and transparently analyze the scientific data collected by the new telescope.This multi-million dollar project was funded by private donors who found me after reading my book Alien Or listen to numerous interviews after its publication.Subsequently, I assembled a special research team Plans are to build a new telescope network and monitor the sky for any anomalous objects near the earth. When searching the sky in a new way, people are likely to find something new.
This is true for astronomers Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), its improved optical design telescope Let him discover The four largest satellites of Jupiter In 1609-1610. These Galileo satellites are the first satellites discovered to orbit a planet other than the Earth.Galileo also found Saturn ring In 1610.Both findings provide support Heliocentric theory, Developed by Nicolaus Copernicus And was published in 1543, replacing the previous, dogmatic and incorrect, Geocentric model Cosmic.according to A popular legendAfter Galileo abandoned his theory of the Earth’s movement around the sun under persecution, he allegedly murmured a rebellious phrase “However it will move. Galileo also complained that some philosophers who opposed his discovery even refused to see the mountains on the moon or the four largest moons of Jupiter through his telescope. Let us not repeat their mistakes. Admitting our incomplete knowledge will Enable us to complete our knowledge.
Our project is named after Galileo because it has the potential to make groundbreaking discoveries about alien technological civilization. High-resolution images of extraterrestrial artifacts may affect our worldview like Galileo’s pioneering observations.
This is an opinion and analysis article; the views expressed by the author or author are not necessarily Scientific american.