No evidence of transmitting aliens was reported when SETI astronomers completed their first “directed” search in an effort to search for intelligent extraterrestrials.
By focusing the Green Bank radio telescope, located in West Virginia, on stars hosting (candidate) exoplanets, it is hoped that one of those star systems may also play host to a sufficiently evolved alien race capable of transmitting radio signals into space.
But in a study headed by ex-SETI chief Jill Tarter, the conclusion of this first attempt is blunt: “No signals of extraterrestrial origin were found,” Discovery News reported.
With the help of the Kepler space telescope, Tarter and her team were able to identify which stars in Kepler’s field of view host exoplanets with certain characteristics.
By selecting star systems hosting worlds in their habitable zones, systems containing 5 or more exoplanets and super-Earths with an orbital period of over 50 days, the astronomers hope that the evolution of intelligent life may have been possible, and thus may contain a transmitting alien race.
But it’s a bit like trying to find a needle in a haystack, when you have no clue where the haystack is.
“In particular, we can offer no argument that an advanced, intelligent civilization necessarily produces narrow-band radio emission, either intentional or otherwise,” the SETI astronomers stated.
“Thus we are probing only a potential subset of such civilizations, where the size of the subset is difficult to estimate.
“The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is still in its infancy, and there is much parameter space left to explore,” they said.
86 stars were selected for this directed search, and over a period of three months in 2011 (February to April), the Green Bank antennae detected 52 candidate narrow-band radio signals (less than 5 Hz) between 1-2 GHz.
After careful analysis, all signals were ruled out as being anything extraterrestrial; they were identified as interference from artificial terrestrial sources.
ANI
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Bummer
you were expecting what?
all you are looking at are reflections from the past.
hundreds to millions of years in the past?
if their beginning was like ours, and they only achieved technology in the last couple hundred years, we have a long wait to hear them, just like they can’t hear us yet…
the truth is out there !
I still have the SETI app installed on my computer – been running it for years when my system is idle.
I did, too, until It burned a hole in my monitor (this was back in the CR days). I gave it up when I realized that the search is way to narrow and only luck will produce a strike. Maybe we should send out a beam with the message. “Food available, come and get it”, and wait for them to arrive.
I like to think of it this way: Out of 13 billion years, our race has only been broadcasting within these spectrum for slightly over 100 years. An absolutely miniscule percentage of the total time. And now, a large majority of our broadcasting is done within closed mediums, i.e. cable systems, downward signals from satellites, etc. So we ourselves are becoming almost invisible again within those spectrum. So we ourselves have only sent detectable signals in a small window. I would imagine that the same would be true for any other race that has reached or surpassed our technological level.
Now, SETI would only be able to spot those remote transmissions from other races if they had their 100 year window coincide exactly with the distance from the earth in light years, and their own technological timeline coincide perfectly with our own, minus the distance / time for signal travel. Given the vast size of Deep Time, it is statistically almost nil that we would detect anything.
http://www.sciencevisualization.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/clock.wp.png
Maybe there is a reason everyone is being quiet, maybe the loud ones make a good snack.
why point towards planets? I mean the galaxy is spinning and stuff move away from eachother, how would you be able to find something that is that far away, those planets where not there and I don't think their signals would travel here instantly which would be the only way to find something in the way these guys have done it
I have been studying E.T. and their craft and power source for approximately 5 years. In that time I have photographed hundreds of alien beings and their crafts. What I don’t understand is how is it, that I have discovered E.T.’s with two cameras, a pair of binoculars,and only an approximate investment of a few hundred dollars and your people can’t find them with an abundance of personell and funding in the millions? How is that possible? So what’s going on?