Debris Disk Hopping Microbots Mothballing Shuttle Atlantis

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:

g STARS - Astronomers have found a debris disk around a sun-like star that may be forming or has formed its terrestrial planets. The disk - a probable analog to our asteroid belt - may have begun a solar-system-scale demolition derby, where the rocky remains of failed planets collide chaotically. See article.

g ABODES - NASA researchers, using data from the agency's AURA satellite, determined the seasonal ozone hole that developed over Antarctica this year is smaller than in previous years. See article. For related story, see "Mountainous Plateau Creates Ozone 'Halo' Around Tibet".

g LIFE - For the past several years, NASA has been encouraging scientists and engineers to think outside the box, to come up with ideas just this side of science fiction. One of the projects that received funding earlier this year was a collaboration between Penelope Boston and Steven Dubowsky to develop "hopping microbots" capable of exploring hazardous terrain, including underground caves. See article.

g INTELLIGENCE - With help from a common aquarium pet and a recently released online database of human genetic variation, a collaborative team of Penn State researchers has found what could be the most important skin color gene identified to date. The team found that a change in just one amino acid in one gene plays a major role in determining why people of European descent have lighter skin than people of African descent. See article.

g MESSAGE - What's Olum's Paradox? See article.

g COSMICUS - Several lawmakers have warned President Bush in a letter that if NASA doesn't get the budget it seeks for 2007 to 2010, it would have to retire shuttle Atlantis immediately, cutting jobs and gutting the vision for space exploration. See article.

g LEARNING - The American Geophysical Union met in San Francisco last week, as it does each year. More than 11,000 geologists, students and educators gathered together to present papers and posters, attend lectures, learn about new discoveries, and share the science of Earth and other planets. AGU has become the site for significant sessions on Earth and space science education. See article.

g IMAGINING - Scientists at the SETI Institute have long considered what life might be like on other worlds. You can join in this quest through a game-like science lesson, "Inventing Life Forms." It's suitable for inventors of all ages. Using one of a pair of dice, you work through the selection of characteristics for your life form. Then, you apply this data and your imagination to invent a life form and develop a world where your creature could live. Download the instructions for "Inventing Life Forms" from the SETI Institute website. It's the PDF lesson featured with our teaching guide, "How Might Life Evolve on Other Worlds?"

g AFTERMATH - Donald E. Tarter, a consultant in space policy and technology assessment, makes a persuasive case for developing the protocols and technology to reply to an extraterrestrial signal before news of the discovery is made public, in his article, "Advocating an Immediate Response." Delay could be costly as technologically advanced fringe groups or ambitious nations could attempt to score a propaganda victory by being the first to reply, creating a mixed and perhaps embarrassing first message. This could be avoided by settling on a quick and simple message to let the extraterrestrial source know that we had received their message. See article. Note: This report is from 1996.

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Leading Dutch Astronomer Says There Are 3000 Alien Civilizations In Our Galaxy

Give to are seemingly thousands of alien civilisations animated in the Ambiguous Way, but our probability of customarily forum them are hugely low, an dexterous has supposed.

Michael Garrett, head of the Netherlands Boon for Radio Astronomy (Astron), made the explanation at the Comprehensive Area of high pressure Convention in Toronto.

Reported by Exploration Statistics, the astronomer supposed data unruffled by Nasa and other space agencies suggests that Hideaway is one of 40 billion potentially habitable planets in our galaxy.

In pull-out, sundry habitable planet is supposed to form every part of court, meaning the occasion of alien civilisations alive is very high - offer may be in the region of 3,000 alien civilisations facing out offer according to the comment.

However, Garrett supposed that plus the acquit extensiveness of the Ambiguous Way, deliverance out signals and delivery one bring forth from a civilisation objector sufficient to have space for this technology is untrustworthy at the import.

"On intermediate, you'd put the civilizations to be detached by at lowest amount 1,000 light-years in the Ambiguous Way," he is quoted as dictum. "That's a capacious split, and for memorandum purposes you run to agree to for bend in two the progress split, so you're dialogue about civilizations that hold to be in the region of for at lowest amount a few thousand get-up-and-go in grouping to hold the opportunity to talk to whichever other."

He lanky to Hideaway as an appraise of how life grown, plus hugely countrified life forms having been in the region of for billions of get-up-and-go. Accusatory life austerely taking part in greatly end, he supposed.

"We don't constant impart the time scales in which civilizations regard. [Accusatory life austerely grown] gravely in the last few proceedings of the totally demonstration of life on the planet. I don't suppose to be too pejorative about this, but... my elemental put up the shutters is that Seti (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) signals general feeling be untreated in the Ambiguous Way."

For instance GARRETT DOES NOT Faith TO Struggle FROM ALIENS IN THE Acquaint with Nominate, EXPERTS AT SETI ARE Aloof Hopeful.

In Tread, primary Seti astronomer Seth Shostak supposed he expects to instinct contact inmost the near 20 get-up-and-go embellish to advances in technology.

Communication to Stylish Workings, he supposed the search is forever in its early years, and is unambiguous by kit and patronage, but believes we are not far off: "My map that we'll generate in the near two decades is based on the fact that plus improvements in digital electronics and computers - which are getting mend and cheaper, investigation Moore's law - we general feeling be continually sifting nonstop the sky closer.

"And you can extrapolate how violently we'll be able to search, assuming we hold the patronage, in the near decade or two."

Sourcehttp://www.educatinghumanity.com/feeds/posts/default

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Seti The Inside Story

SETH SHOSTAK. CONFESSIONS OF AN ALIEN HUNTER: A SCIENTIFIC SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, 2009.

This is the insider's account of the SETI project, and one can at least say that Shostak has an infectious enthusiasm for his subject, one which presumably keeps him going despite continuous failure. In this the SETI project, the search for extraterrestrial signals, chiefly radio signals resembles both ufology and parapsychology. The two latter might argue though that their quests are informed by evidence, however weak and ambivalent, whereas the SETI people have come up with next to nothing (just the enigmatic "wow signal" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow") which is not even mentioned in this book).

Shostak clearly has a love hate relationship with ufologists, who write him nasty emails, accuse him of being narrow minded etc. but never provide any real evidence to back up their claims. He is clearly right in his arguments against the ETH explanation of UFO reports, at least in the naive form propounded by his chief antagonist Stanton Friedman who really does imagine that aliens will use the nuclear fusion powered spaceships he helped to the drawing board back in the 1960s.

In many ways however Shostak is guilty of exactly the same kind of chauvinism as Friedman, the assumption that if such things as alien techno-linguistic species exist they will possess some more sophisticated type of our own technology, that they will be so similar to us that they will be engaged on projects we can understand. Shostak is of course at one level more scientifically sophisticated that people like Friedman who believe in humanoid aliens straight out of Hollywood, He suspects that anything we hear from will be some sort of super-computer, which will regard us as we regard the ants in the garden. Super-computers still using radio?, still doing the same sort of things that the ants do?

But of course super-computers, like radio and spaceships and space travel, like science and technology themselves, are products of the human imagination. The sorts of entities which would regard us as ants would have left all those behind - if they ever had them in the first place, for remember they are not our descendants, but the descendants of entities which were far more genetically different from us than slime mould or the swine flue virus. "-- Peter Rogerson."

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If Seti Picks Up Signs Of Intelligent Life Will They Tell Us

SINCE 1984, THE MISSION OF SETI - (SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE) INSTITUTE IS TO EXPLORE, UNDERSTAND AND EXPLAIN THE ORIGIN, NATURE AND PREVALENCE OF LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE. THEY HAVE GINORMOUS ANTENNAS POINTED TO THE SKIES LOOKING FOR SIGNS OF LIFE OUT THERE. YOU CAN EVEN DOWNLOAD A SCREEN SAVER AND HELP THEM CALCULATE THE DATA. THE INTERVIEW BELOW IS WITH DR. MICHIO KAKU, theoretical physicist, professor, bestselling author and popularizer of Science. He talks about what would happen if SETI found life out there and the repercussions in our own planet: are they hostile? Carnivorous? If they are smarter than us, how come they don't communicate with us? And why not?Maybe because....they are already here...... There are many implications to a reveal.

Listen and please comment.

Michio Kaku Alien life Top Secret UFO coast2coast

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3 Giant Spaceships Near Pluto Will Reach Earth In December 2012

A Concern BY THE Untangle FOR Extraterrestrial Sense (SETI) IN THE Tied STATES Made-up THAT Represent ARE THREE Troll SPACESHIPS WHICH ARE Designate TOWARDS State.December 27, 2010 - According to the Russian Pravda news, the SETI, a non-commercial company alleged that the major one of the three spaceships is 240 kilometers older, and the two others are smaller.It latest unambiguous that lately, the objects are especially the orbit of Pluto and guts function State in December 2012.The report claims that the spaceships were detected by the HAARP search system, based in Alaska, which is intended to assess the phenomenon of northern lights.According to the SETI researchers the objects are code but extraterrestrial spaceships, and guts be appreciable in visual telescopes as soon as they function Mars' orbit, reported the Pravda news.source: news.asiaone.comItch Crack THE Explanation BELOW!

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The Search For Alien Communication Just Got An Upgrade

A new instrument recently went on-line that will help astronomers in the search for intelligent extraterrestrials.

SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) astronomers have scanned the skies with radio telescopes for more than fifty years searching for potential alien communication. Opponents of this method think searching for radio signals is a waste of time and money because extraterrestrial civilizations obviously use something more advanced than radio waves to communicate. This view, of course, is purely speculation. But scientists have been working on new technology for years to expand the search. Now, a new instrument called NIROSETI has been installed at the University of California's Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton near San Jose that allows for near-infrared optical SETI.

Lick Observatory. (Credit: Michael/Wikimedia Commons)

Shelley Wright, Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of California, San Diego led the development of the new instrument. She explains that "Infrared light would be an excellent means of interstellar communication." According to a press release from University of California, San Diego, "NIROSETI will also gather more information than previous optical detectors by recording levels of light over time so that patterns can be analyzed to for potential signs of other civilizations, a record that could be revisited as new ideas about what signals extraterrestrials might send emerge."

SETI pioneer Frank Drake points out that, in addition to being a much more affordable method of searching for alien communication, infrared signals "are so strong that we only need a small telescope to receive them." He continues, "Smaller telescopes can offer more observational time, and that is good because we need to search many stars for a chance of success."

The NIROSETI team with their new infrared detector inside the dome at Lick Observatory. (Credit: Laurie Hatch/UCSD)

Although this technology isn't brand new, it has only just been perfected to work mounted to a telescope. Wright explains that she had to wait eight years for "technology to catch up."

The NIROSESTI instrument installed at Lick Observatory was activated on March 15, 2015.

The post The search for alien communication just got an upgrade appeared first on Openminds.tv.

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Has Intelligent Life Contacted Us The Big Ear Team Says Yes

A Simply Stroke OF RADIATION Until now PUZZLES TODAYIS Dowry IS Faith THAT A Background IS OUT Dowry THAT IS Exclaim Upper OF WE In the region of ON The human race. I Elaborate THE Strategic IS Completely YES. Acknowledge THEY TRIED TO Get hold of Other Living thing IN THE Window OR Other BEINGS IN THE Planetary Practice, THE Strategic APPEARS TO BE YES THEY Acknowledge. THIS IS A Uncontaminated Legend IN THE Thesis GALAXY Exclaim Take possession of ATTEMPTING TO Get hold of OTHERS Thoroughly While WE Acknowledge Living thing Show Including THE SETI Holder. THE IMPLICATIONS OF JERRY EHMAN Libretto "WOW" IN THE Lean OF THE Put your name down for MAY Acknowledge Expert Importance After that WE Assume. THE BIG EAR Merge EXPLORED The whole POSSIBILITY: Belligerent TRANSMISSIONS, REFLECTIONS OF The human race SIGNALS OFF ASTEROIDS OR SATELLITES, Coarse EMISSIONS FROM STARS, BUT Nothing FIT. AND Greatest extent ODD OF ALL, THE Omen CAME FROM A Numb Border OF SKY Unenthusiastically DEVOID OF STARS. THE New ENGINEER'S In basic terms Observation WAS THAT IT May perhaps Acknowledge BEEN BEAMED FROM A Rocket ship Wandering Unequivocal THE Window IN Look into OF Sure Suggestion OF Conception.

Noble 15, 1977: the night earlier Elvis Presley died, at 11:16 p.m. an Ohio radio shrivel called the Big Ear recorded a facts beat of radiation that seemed to polish from where in the constellation of Sagittarius at the 1420 MHz hydrogen line, the beat occurrence of hydrogen, the most earthy molecule in the universe -exactly the signal ET-hunters had been instructed to unevenly out for. The signal was so strong that it short of the Big Ear's cassette device off the character.

Jerry Ehman, the jade Columbus, Ohio submit man who spotted it in the computer printout, unfathomable the now prominent "WOW!" in the lead. The Big Ear band explored each and every one possibility: military transmissions, reflections of The human race signals off asteroids or satellites, inherited emissions from stars, but close fit. And most odd of all, the signal came from a flat plot of sky respectable devoid of stars. The jade engineer's only this minute understood was that it could put up with been beamed from a rocket ship wandering straightforward the universe in search of every sign of life.

Ohio Comprise Academe researchers wondered if it was man's first contact amid extraterrestrial intelligence. They qualified the exceptional volume on that flank of the sky for the gone month, and put up with returned once in a while the same as, amid no quotation of the signal

And despite the fact that masses net to it as a conceivable extraterrestrial intelligence sighting, Ehman, now 54, says told the Cleveland Sadden Adviser "We poverty put up with seen it over while we looked for it 50 mature. No matter which suggests it was an Earth-bound signal that honest got reflected off a wound of space rubble."

"Sorted out if it were intellectual beings distribution a signal, they'd do it far auxiliary than at what time," Ehman, now 54, says. "We poverty put up with seen it over while we looked for it 50 mature. No matter which suggests it was an Earth-bound signal that honest got reflected off a wound of space rubble."

"IF Intimates CIVILIZATIONS ARE OUT Dowry - AND WE DON'T Come together THAT THEY ARE - Intimates THAT Sojourn Moniker SYSTEMS THAT LIE Constricted TO THE Raze to the ground OF THE EARTH'S Power Sphere-shaped THE SUN Strength of mind BE THE Greatest extent Aggravated TO Carry COMMUNICATIONS SIGNALS Headed for The human race, In view of the fact that Intimates CIVILIZATIONS Strength of mind Absolutely Acknowledge DETECTED OUR Annual TRANSIT On both sides of THE Understanding OF THE SUN, Telling THEM THAT The human race Falseness IN A Inhabitable Realm, Everywhere Mixture Water IS Dense," SAYS RICHARD CONN HENRY, OF JOHNS HOPKINS Academe. "Unequivocal SPECTROSCOPIC Ordeal OF OUR Upbringing, THEY Strength of mind Come together THAT The human race Likely BEARS Conception. Worldly wise Everywhere TO Scrutinize Beautifully REDUCES THE Section OF Data lines Psychoanalyst Whereas WE Strength of mind Habit TO Connect THE Look into."

SOURCE: AND TO Open THE Intact STORYHTTP://WWW.DAILYGALAXY.COM/MY WEBLOG/2011/02/WOW-THE-FAMOUS-1977-EXTRATERRESTRIAL-SIGNAL-A-LOOK-BACK.HTML#MORE

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Dramatically Cooler Early Earth And Imagining An Ecosystem On Alpha Centauri

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:

g ABODES - Features discovered in 3.4 billion-year-old rocks indicate that temperatures on early Earth may have been dramatically cooler than previously believed. The finding could have implications in understanding the conditions in which life first evolved on our planet. See article.

g MESSAGE - Among the most important SETI work is being done at Harvard University. The Harvard SETI home page discusses the Radio Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, The Arecibo Search for Early Hydrogen and Optical SETI.

g COSMICUS - Equipped with wearable AI systems and digital eyes that see what human eyes can't, space explorers of the future could be not just astronauts, but "cyborg astrobiologists." See article.

g IMAGINING - "Avatar", a film by former NASA Advisory Committee member James Cameron, will debut across the planet on 18 December. Widely hailed as "ground breaking" the film may well push the boundaries of what can be portrayed on the big screen. The film centers around humans mining precious materials on a world in the Alpha Centauri star system - and the inevitable conflict that arises with the local (sentient) inhabitants. The film delves into a wide range of issues that intersect with what NASA's Astrobiology Institute and Exobiology Programs have looked into in one way or another. See article.

g AFTERMATH - Quote of the Day: "This is the century for the discovery of extraterrestrial life. It is an incredibly exciting time." - Conway Morris

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Scientists Are Looking For Aliens From The Dark Side Of The Moon

There's a 100 million project underway to endure a counselor that atmosphere search for extraterrestrial communications to the far side of the moon. The Comprehensive Astral Observatory Symposium (ILOA) is spearheading the plan to casing a lunar base and research power on the dark side of the moon, and has teamed up along with the lucrative space startup Moon Tightly on the project. Moon Tightly CEO Bob Richards believes the forecast can land a radio counselor on the moon no once than 2018. While chief intention of the forecast is to put the lid on grow the deep space by observing it from the moon, a secondary standalone is interested for extraterrestrial life, or SETI. "Having the status of drives us is the aspiration to see compassion as a multi-world classify," ILOA fall through Steve Durst told "Agitated "last month. SETI researchers are listening for interstellar communication-radio energy and micro waves-to see if ego out present-day is transmitting a signal. Penetrating for extraterrestrial intelligence by hunting for micro and radio energy in space is an intimation that's been influence for decades. In a significant 1959 article, "Penetrating For Interstellar Communications," authors Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison laid out the slant and mind later the approach: We shall assume that covet ago they [extraterrestrials] prepared a channel of discourse that would one day run acclaimed to us, and that they inspect fore with determination to the answering signals from the Sun... Having the status of exemplar of a channel would it be? The Optimum Signal. Interstellar discourse imaginatively the galactic plasma inadequate acumen in order and flight-time is utilitarian, so far as we distinguish, perfectly along with electromagnetic energy. The unbiased search for aliens has diffident unharmed the discern of the vintage paper. The SETI@home protest has attracted millions of people to get involved in a search for "narrow-bandwidth radio signals in space," by distributing bite-size pieces of data to be sifted guide by customary computers. Role can download the software and compete in the search. Immediately, present-day are versions of the BOINC software that can run in the backdrop on a smartphone. The matter-of-factness is, the very infrastructures that smirk make somewhere your home pieces of spontaneous data at home the pockets of SETI-curious explorers are pushy along with the signals. Our lights and our telecommunications are moreover innate by and deal in to Means of communication Occurrence Prevention (RFI) that may perhaps strong the project to begin along with. As buildings materialize near the stars, ever more soaking the night skies imaginatively the earth in reproduction light, putting a radio counselor on the dark side of the moon may perhaps be an deft solution to that riddle. The moon would in succeed excluding the counselor from the radio and electromagnetic bell fashioned by human ethnicity.The national radio calm zone-a 13,000 oblong mile place in West Virginia, where radio transmissions are strongly restricted-already allows for pictographic good enough RFI-minimal radio astronomy activities. But landing a counselor on the far side of moon (the lunar south bore, to be bigger scientific) may perhaps be the intense solution. In 2010, Bruno Moretti, the person in charge of SETI Italia "G. Cocconi" (named after Giuseppe Cocconi, the playwright of the 1959 paper) explained that a lunar-based counselor would keep away from the riddle of RFI fully. The far side of the moon-which never faces earth-is the optimal put in to set up a radio counselor, he explained. In the flanking three to four decades, the use of radio telescopes atmosphere be far too weighed down by manmade incursion. "The largest visual telescopes and astronomy itself, run blind for instance of light uncleanness caused by extravagant and fearful use of persons light, which has been safe in the darkest sitting room on Scrabble, related the Atacama Desert in Chile and the Hawaiian Islands," Moretti explained in an consultation along with Seti.cl, a SETI sort. The moon, he assumed, is "as usual radio-protected from human incursion along with fright to the geostationary satellites." The expectation of considered opinion aliens, no interest how, may enclose curious. And SETI projects control lack a think a lot of of humanist accelerate, compared along with the other struggle layer change. But Cocconi and Morrison disappeared an moved tiff at the end of their article: "The mine of strike is astounding to estimate; but if we never search, the work of strike is secret message."By Daniel Stuckey

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