There is a problem with our approach at the moment when looking for alien civilisations. SETI looks for signals that are sent by the electromagnetic spectrum and their are a lot of frequencies to search. If you pair this with the size of the universe you can see how SETI is really looking for a needle in a haystack. SETI is still a good idea as one needle in one haystack is all that is needed.
There are other ideas one being the search for alien artefacts. Alien artefacts such as spacecraft, probes, dead aliens, abandoned bases, spanners etc would give a positive indication that ET had visited our solar system.
The ultimate alien artefact, the monolith from space Odyssey 2001
The Earth and the moon have been around for about 4.5 billion years compared to the search for SETI since 1960 when Frank Drake did his first Seti experiment. As you can see 50 years of searching with SETI compared to 4.5 billion years gives a large possibility of an alien leaving an artefact in our solar system.
So where would be the best places to look for alien artefacts? Earth is being searched all the time in our everyday lives as we go about our business and we haven’t found anything we can say is an artefact. The oceans are mainly unexplored as the finding of hydrothermal vents and life thriving around them has shown.
Our planet is not static but travels through the Galaxy as a spacecraft passing other stars and other stars passing us. With the discovery of exoplanets we may soon know how common oxygen containing atmospheres are. If these types of atmosphere are rare then the Earth would stand out to any alien civilisation around another star passing our position.
If a rich alien did notice our planet and decide to investigate the moon would be a much better place to observe the Earth than in orbit or actually on the Earth itself. The moon’s advantages include no atmospheric erosion of, geological problems or annoying apes/humans interfering with any equipment.
Far Side of Moon
The advantages the moon brings to equipment placed for Earth monitoring when compared to an object in orbit around the Earth are protection from meteorites and radiation, fuel not needed to maintain its orbit, a source of materials for repair, heat control and support for life. If they fancied hiding the moon would obviously be a much better place than advertising their presence around the Earth in orbit. The moon’s much lower gravity may also be preferred.
Aliens would probably look at a landing on the moon as essential just as we are looking at Phobos as a base for missions on Mars. Therefore the moon could be full of artefacts. Large artefacts over time would probably disappear due to meteorites but the smaller bits and pieces such as parts of old destroyed artefacts may still exist beneath the surface covered by dust and meteorite impacts where they would be protected from further bombardment.
Perhaps a Ruin like Formation on the Moon?
If an alien is thinking the same way as us it may well think that the moon is a likely place for alien artefacts and leave its own artefacts that we could eventually find.
Unless the aliens are very green they will probably pollute the space in our solar system. This could mean that artificial alien satellites have disintegrated into debris, each piece of debris having a different chemical composition which could be shown in multicoloured bodies. There is so much junk in orbit around the Earth that it would take quite a long time to search. Much further out where our pollution hasn’t affected the solar system we may have more luck.
If we look for debris that has fallen to Earth it is very easy to mistake objects and make false claims as many people do without significant evidence. Most are meteorites and lots of objects are classed as UFO’s but are actually objects that just have not been identified and are not spaceships etc. It would be very odd that they have flown all the way just to annoy us and fill up the Internet with lots of UFO pictures.
Rubbish from an alien civilisation could leak into the interstellar medium and eventually reach us. This could be due to light pressure which could expel extremely small debris particles from such things as rocket engines. An artefacts interaction with a planet may cause it to assume an asteroid or comet like motion due to gravity and therefore be flung away from a planetary system possibly towards our solar system. Computer simulations have been carried out and about 10 to 30% of small bodies are predicted to leave the solar system. Explosions of artefacts such as satellites and spacecraft could propel artefacts away from a planetary system.
Crop Circles Were Good Entertainment but Turned out to Be Hoaxes
Obviously these artefacts are going to take a long time to travel to us from even the closest star but don’t forget that the solar system has been around for about 4.5 billion years, it just depends on when the artefacts were expelled.
The search for alien artefacts may become more relevant in the future as we explore more and more of the solar system and as time goes by. The attitude towards this type of search for intelligent life signs doesn’t go down that well in most scientific circles although if you look at Seti it was once called pseudoscience but has been more widely accepted today. With the invention of astrophysics and astrobiology years ago people are beginning to accept that it is worth looking for signs of alien life. If basic life is found in the solar system on, say, Europa then the search may gain momentum and finding signs of intelligent life or complex life itself may become a reality.
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Very interesting articles. Moon has much advantages over case on Earth. The biggest problem with searching for alien life by sending radio signals, is that signals becomes weaker and weaker with increasing time and distance.
Radio signals becoming weaker the further they travel is a problem but I would have thought that the main problem would be actually receiving a signal from an alien civilisation and actually being able to decode it.
With the amount of exoplanets being found and some very similar to Earth, although not of the same size, at a guess I would say that probably 30% of stars have planets that are suitable for life and at a push I would say a lot more as water based life may not be the only way life can form.
The amount of stars with earthlike planets may mean that the strength of radio signals is not that important as there may be a civilisation reasonably close by.
Soon we will have a good estimate of the stars that contain exact earthlike planets and another part of Drakes equation will be estimated to a high degree of accuracy. I have heard that within the next 10 years (hopefully sooner) spectroscopy will be able to tell the chemicals in the atmospheres of exoplanets and if we detect something like CFCs we would be able to say that there is probably life on that particular planet and make an estimate for the next part of Drakes equation, the amount of earthlike planets with life on it.
I expect the only way that we will find out if life is intelligent or not is to send a probe or receive a radio signal.
I’m agree with you. The weaker signal problem applies to us in the same way as to aliens. If that sort of chemical detectors are made, it would be a giant leap to SETI programme. Every chemical has its own spectral line for example sodium have yellow intense light and argon have greenish spectrum. So it doesn’t seem too pesky, yet in addition to, we need powerful spectroscopy. Drake equation doesn’t make any sense at all, if we are considering the evolution of alien life other than carbon water chauvinism. Just search the term ‘complications in search of alien life’ and it will leave you to my article about detection of alien life.
Radio signals decrease in strength according to the square of the distance trans versed. Thus a doubling of distance means the signal is quarter strenght of original. Our nearest star is 4 light years away, so the strength and therefore detectability of a signal from there is miniscual.
Our only hope of finding such a signal is if the source is of incredible power and directed towards earth. But of course, the aliens need to know we are here and also where earth will actually be after x light years.
Finding a needle in a haystack is a walk in the park by comparison!
Then of course there is decoding……
Now how did the USS Enterprise do it?
A Valid good point.
The aliens may well send a signal directly to us just as we will in the future to one of the exoplanets that have been found that has indications of life (i.e. atmospheric content that should be there if nature was left to its own devices such as CFCs).
I believe that we may have missed quite a few messages that we just haven’t recognised as messages. we haven’t got a clue on what the message will look like unless it comes from a planet very similar to ours. That must be even harder than finding a needle in a haystack while walking in a park.
That’s right chrdann.
Also the time delay in light speed signals (a decade or more) is going to discourage all but the most dedicated researchers.
Faster than light signals are what we need. Now if they are right about coupled quantum pairs that react instantaneously regardless of distance we might have a chance.
But that’s pure science fiction isn’t it?
Dude, it’s “Artifact.” It’s also “Civilization.”
And that photo with the middle finger looks like human amateur photoshop work. The crop circle in that source is real, and probably human — but the middle finger in photoshop.
Moving ON.
Real Crop Circles.
“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugq6frGlKVQ&feature=player_embedded#!” explain these.
Really, because nobody else in the entire world can. I wouldn’t exactly write them off just yet…. Good effort though, with the blog an’ all. Just remember to spell check next time.
The photo with the middle finger – terribly poor imitation of the real crop circles. Just look how uneven the lines are, neither straight, neither circular. The hand obviously is a poor Photoshop job.
the crop circle photo above is a name of a prophet wretten in Arabic systematically. ( i will not comment on the Hand photo).
Crop circles are good fun but not alien in origin. Nor do I believe is anything else on this planet.
Face facts; distance and time involved in interstellar traveling rule it out. There is just a slim hope of communication by other means such as radio. Unless of course an alien has learned how to warp space a la Star-trek.
do you have a link about the name of the Prophet written in Arabic? That hand comes from another sort of Prophet!
if you are familiar with Arabic writting, i believe you will not have problem in reading the name. I sugest that you should try and know some Arabic words so that the word will be easy for you. Or do you want me to tell you the name ?
I am not familiar with Arabic writing. Go ahead and translate please.
I still admit that you try and know some arabic word becouse the name of the crop circle creator is written in one of the crop circle but in Arabic word systematically in four angle of thesame crop circle, how can i prove to you those names if you dont know some arabic word. I beg you in the name of God to learn arabic words, once you start proving to me of your learning, i swear i will lead you to those name. there is alot to learn on crop cirle photos. over to you Chris.
No thanks I’ll use google translate.
I will be happy with that if you can use ‘google translate’ to learn. You are on the way.
both Elien & Human being are created by God, thus God said in the islamic book (Qur’an) He created heaven & earth and all what is there in it. to know where Elien are, all we need is to pray to him to show us, since he said no body go outside space without his permission, in 19 cent..(40-47) there are report of ufo with discription of creatures(elien) but some people did not believe that, the Elien crop circle prove to us by God that there such cretures in the univers, & to prove to us that crop circle are not made by Elien, he created the pi crop circle in which elien dont know about that sign which we us in mathmatic. to make it clear to us God write his name Allah in the crop circle (311 crop circle) in Arabic form.
You spelled so many things wrong…
I am not 100% good in English. Understanding is all i need.
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this is a very interesting story but its simply foolishness dat aliens replied 2 us in form of crop circles
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