Questions tagged [seti]

Questions about the project "Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence" dedicated to find signals from extraterrestrial life

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Greetings to Altair: what is the probability of detecting a return message, assuming one was sent?

Greetings to Altair was a 1983 transmission to Altair, 16.7 light years distant, sent on the 46m Stanford radio telescope, known as "The Dish". [Quast 2018] Assuming an alien civilisation ...
Dragon's user avatar
  • 191
18 votes
3 answers
3k views

Non-anthropic, universal units of time for active SETI

Is there a universal time (duration) reference, an intuitive focal point that works for long periods (compared to the Planck time), and can be used as a signal of intelligence? Assuming a Kardashev ...
2080's user avatar
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1 vote
0 answers
56 views

What's the most distant radio message we could detect with today's radio telescopes, if the message is initially broadcasted in all directions?

An additional assumption is that broadcasting the message may require using a medium-sized star, like the Sun, for an hour, by e.g. Dysoning it. I don't know enough to answer the question myself. If ...
Mark Smith's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
179 views

Wouldn't our own EM emissions be hiding the best places to look for signs of intelligent life?

I read that only a narrow band of radio waves are reserved for astronomical observation, and humans emit all sorts of electromagnetic waves, which leads to my question: Could there be signals of ...
joeyfb's user avatar
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1 vote
0 answers
91 views

Search of technosignatures (and the reciprocity of SETI) [closed]

Here is a link on the concept of "Earth Transit Zone" (the zone of our sky from where an alien civilization, if any of course, would have the best chance to spot planet Earth): https://...
Ng Ph's user avatar
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10 votes
1 answer
662 views

Artificial radio waves masked by a star's natural radio waves?

Our civilisation emits radio waves into space. But insofar as the Sun can be modelled as a black body, it is also emitting radio waves into space! For an alien civilisation too far away from us to be ...
enigmaticPhysicist's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
135 views

Has SETI searched the solar system for life?

I know SETI is searching the stars for radio signals emitted by advanced alien civilizations, but has SETI searched inside our solar system - particularly moons, planets, and Lagrange points? I would ...
Jonathan's user avatar
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1 vote
0 answers
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Would a future Dyson sphere or swarm around our Sun actually be beneficial to people on Earth? [closed]

A Dyson sphere or swarm's function is to harvests most of a star's energy, correct? However, a future Dyson sphere around our Sun would also block the Sun's rays from reaching Earth. Wouldn't it ...
CiurkitboyN's user avatar
5 votes
0 answers
99 views

BLC1 and Proxima Centauri's activity

From Wikipedia BLC1: A paper by other astronomers released 10 days before the news report about BLC1 reports the detection of "a bright, long-duration optical flare, accompanied by a series of ...
NeutronCat's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
527 views

Current best-known Drake Equation values?

Frank Drake's equation is used to estimate $N$ the number of civilizations we might be able to communicate with in our galaxy: $$N = R_\star f_p n_e f_l f_i f_c L$$ where: $R_\star$ is the average ...
Connor Garcia's user avatar
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6 votes
1 answer
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Is the SETI's `needle-sharp at 982.002 megahertz` signal accessible?

In April-May 2019, the Parkes radio telescope, in Australia, received a weird signal while surveying Proxima Centauri. Is this signal available, ideally in some digitalized form? Where could I ...
Vorac's user avatar
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2 votes
2 answers
246 views

How to communicate Fine Structure Constant to aliens? [closed]

Sorry if this is not the right question for this channel, I just need to know and there is no good place to ask. It is said the Fine Structure Constant α is one of the most fundamental constants in ...
daniel.sedlacek's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
125 views

What are the prime challenges in search for extraterrestrial intelligence? [closed]

What have we been able to accomplish so far and what are the prime obstacles that block our sight? My understanding is that Radio Telescopes are the prime tool for the search. I wonder what kind of ...
Ilya Gazman's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
523 views

Is the pulsar map on the Pioneer/Voyager probes only meaningful for earthlings?

The Pioneer probes brought plaques (and later the Voyagers two golden discs) with a "pulsar map" imprinted on them. The purpose of the map is to make the position of the Sun clear for an ...
Swike's user avatar
  • 3,856
6 votes
2 answers
265 views

How accurately could late 50s - early 60s humans have mapped the solar system?

What if early SETI investigations had focused on our own solar system, rather than distant stars? Given the technology that existed around the 1950s, how much surveillance would humanity be able to do?...
Crystal E's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
87 views

Why is the SETI survey limited to only Red Dwarf Stars?

I was going through the official SETI website, when I came across this article on the same website which said : Today, the SETI Institute uses a specially designed instrument for its SETI efforts – ...
Infinity Milestone's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
44 views

Can concentration of gas in exoplanet atmosphere be found out from wavelength and absorbing radius from spectral data?

I was working on exoplanet spectral data from which I need to infer the concentration of gases. However, the exoplanet spectroscopy data contains only absorption wavelength and absorption radius. Is ...
Niranjan Dindodi's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
36 views

Have non-periodic radio signals been analyzed for shannon entropy or put on a Zipf plot?

If aliens did exist, they would probably compress their communications. And they might use a fault tolerant infrastructure like TCP/IP. In either scenario, real communications would not be periodic ...
aquagremlin's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
311 views

Did comets 266P/Christensen or P/2008 Y2 (Gibbs) cause the Wow! signal?

Continuing my fascination with the Wow! signal, I stumbled upon an article from 2016 titled Famous Wow! signal might have been from comets, not aliens. It describes the hypothesis that the signal ...
pipe's user avatar
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5 votes
0 answers
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Is all of the data from the same program that found the Wow!-signal analyzed?

I just read on Wikipedia that... By 1977, Ehman was working at the SETI project as a volunteer; his job involved analyzing by hand large amounts of data processed by an IBM 1130 computer and ...
pipe's user avatar
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5 votes
1 answer
240 views

Gamma ray detection for SETI. How far away could we detect an alien nuclear powered rocket?

I suspect our best bet for finding advanced civilisations is to look for gamma rays characteristic of nuclear/antimatter propulsion. If an alien civilisation was using something similar to the Orion ...
Ingolifs's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
224 views

Have we sent radio signals to exoplanets that may be habitable?

I would like to know please whether or not we have sent radio signals to exoplanets that may be habitable. Thanks in advance !
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4 votes
1 answer
161 views

WOW! signal calculation of point source intensity

The WOW! signal's measurement took the average signal strength over 12-second intervals. The average intensity's peak was just over 30-1 signal to noise, meaning that the 12 second interval had an ...
Dilettanter's user avatar
-1 votes
1 answer
178 views

Can I pick up alien radio signals from my backyard? [closed]

I would like to know please whether or not I can pick up alien radio signals from my backyard.
Alberto's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
118 views

UK groups that investigate extraterrestrial life

What are some UK based groups that research astrobiology, especially the chance of extraterrestrial intelligence?
Clytemnestra's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
102 views

Astronomy online degrees

I have a masters degree in computer science and statistics but would like to advance my knowledge in astronomy, ideally in getting some kind of online degree. Does anybody have experience, ...
Nickpick's user avatar
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0 votes
0 answers
102 views

What activities of human beings can be detected by aliens 1000 pc away? [duplicate]

Let's suppose they have similar technical level like us now. In radio band, what is our earth like? What signals can be linked to non-natural behaviour? How about optical band and other methods? ...
questionhang's user avatar
  • 3,063
1 vote
1 answer
200 views

What (actually) does "peculiar periodic spectral modulations" refer to in this preprint?

I saw this ArXiv preprint after reading about it in the popular media. I can not even understand the beginning of the introduction (much less the whole paper): INTRODUCTION A Fourier transform ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 31.4k
0 votes
1 answer
147 views

What are the steps I have to follow to join a SETI programme from my location (India)?

I just want to know if I can be part of a SETI project. I have gone through the SETI website, but I still didn't get enough guidance. Apart from installing the BOINC software for letting my machine be ...
Rahul Rabhadiya's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
211 views

What was the nature of the signal received from the direction of HD164595?

There's been a story in the news recently of a potential SETI candidate signal received from the vicinity of star HD164595. What's the nature of this signal? Is it a single pulse of energy, or does ...
tomh's user avatar
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