seti (Page 8)

It’s a question that humans have long asked themselves. We are probably not alone in the universe, though it may feel like it, since life on other planets is probably dominated by microbes.

Alvin Powell, of the Harvard news office, quotes radio astronomer Gerrit Verschuur as saying that he believes that though there is very likely life out there (and perhaps a lot of it), it is very unlikely to be both intelligent and able to communicate with us.

In the Daily Galaxy, Casey Kazan quotes astrophysicist Dimitar Sasselov as saying, “We don’t now have the technology to physically travel outside our solar system for such an exchange to take place, but we are like Columbus centuries ago, learning fast how to get somewhere few think possible.”
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On this week’s Dreamland, (and at last year’s Dreamland Festival), we addressed the question: “Is there anybody out there?” This refers not to whether life exists elsewhere in the universe, but whether it exists in other universes outside of our own.

Researchers Alejandro Jenkins and Gilad Perez have formulated a provocative hypothesis known as the anthropic principle, which states that the existence of intelligent life imposes constraints on the possible form of the laws of physics. In other words, is alien life physically possible?
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A scientist has created a device that makes radio waves do what Albert Einstein said was impossible: travel faster than light. If other cultures on other planets have already learned how to do this, it could be the reason that SETI hasn’t picked up any radio signals (alien cultures are no longer making any noise because the beings there are transmitting using light signals instead).

We don’t yet know how to receive faster than light radio signals, but it could be that this is quite possible with the right kind of equipment. If so, then the universe could suddenly become quite a different place: one that is crowded with radio communications, rather than one that is virtually radio silent.
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SETI has spent over 20 years searching for a signal that would indicate the presence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. An Australian astrophysicist may have finally found it.

Ragbir Bhathal has been careful, however. He spent months checking his equipment, making sure the signal wasn’t a random glitch caused by some malfunction. He has also been checking the same co-ordinates of the night sky on an almost daily basis since, hoping to pick up the signal again.
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