RevMen
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http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/09/0 … index.html
LONDON, England (Reuters) — An unexplained radio signal from deep space could — just might be — contact from an alien civilization, New Scientist magazine reported on Thursday.
The signal, coming from a point between the Pisces and Aries constellations, has been picked up three times by a telescope in Puerto Rico.
There are other explanations besides extraterrestrial contact that may explain the signal. New Scientist said the signal could be generated by a previously unknown astronomical phenomenon or even be a by-product from the telescope itself.
But the mystery beam has excited astronomers across the world.
“If they can see it four, five or six times it really begins to get exciting,” Jocelyn Bell Burnell of the University of Bath in western England told the magazine.
It was broadcast on the main frequency at which the universe’s most common element, hydrogen, absorbs and emits energy, and which astronomers say is the most likely means by which aliens would advertise their presence.
The potentially extraterrestrial signals were picked up through the SETI+home project, which uses programs running as screensavers on millions of personal computers worldwide to sift through the huge amount of data picked up by the telescope.
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Dan
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I find it inconceivable with the size of the universe, that this is the only planet with living organisms.
It’ll be interesting to see what this pans out to.
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RevMen
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“If we are alone in the universe, it seems like an awful waste of space.”
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Dragoon
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Yeah, I hear these stories from time to time, so highly, highly doubt that it will amount to anything, but I hope we do come in contact with aliens at some point in my life.
I agree with Miller that aliens must exist, but whether they are actually close enough for us to ever reach is a different matter.
The one thing that’s really for sure is, that if we come in contact, we’d better hope their not any more hospitable than us.
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rstudios
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Great just when I go to bed, you have to put aliens on my mind   !
I wonder when I grow up if my sons best friend is an alien ….
– rstudios
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X
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Well,
If God made us, why couldn’t he have made more Lifeforms?????
I for one hope this sparks a space-race again…….
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Blunty
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I find it inconceivable with the size of the universe, that this is the only planet with living organisms.
as do I, but for us to be contacted by them (or recieve signals they sent out) they must ALSO be INTELLIGENT life forms, WITH language, WITH technology AND be using radiowaves as a communications tool AND be using them in the same way we do AND be close enough for those communications to be recieved by us.
that’s a LOT of very specific conditions that must be met.
Life out there is pretty much a mathmatical certanty, I have no doubt it’s out there, but contact is another question. I’d LOVE to have contact happen in my lifetime, how exciting it would be, and just imagine the new “space race” it would create, how fast would our already manic pace of technological evolution become then? the mind boggles.
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Dragoon
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Bluntman, I read an article that said our solar system is newer than 75% of solar systems with potential for life. So if another planet has life on it, there is a 75% chance that the life forms have had more time to evolve. The odds are better than you might think. Humans are really new kids on the block. I’d say there’s a good chance humans aren’t even Universally CONSIDERED “intelligent life forms”
When we make contact, (and it WILL happen eventually, I’ve seen speculations from SETI for “by 2025″) I don’t think it will create a new “space race”. The aliens will be simply too far away to even dream of reaching. All it will amount to, I believe, is proof that we’re not alone. Maybe we’ll be able to communicate through radio signals, too, but I’m not aware of how they’d plan to go about that.
So, unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll know what aliens LOOK like, or things of that nature, untill long after our lives are complete.
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David West
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They will contact us on November 9th. We’re not prepared. He is.
Sorry, can you tell I’m a bit excited about Halo 2?
Anyway, I’m kind of skeptical about aliens. Its definately possible, but I don’t think that just because we live in an infinite universe (which, we don’t even know for sure if its infinite or not) that means there MUST be other life. That aside, I WANT there to be other life. And I WANT to make contact with them. Physical contact within my lifetime would be awesome.
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Dragoon
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Woah, you really freaked me out there because November 9th is my birthday (wh– how did he–???) Then I realized it must be the Halo release date.
About your actual message, I think perhaps if you sit down for a while and imagine just how VAST the Universe is, and how tiny Earth is, you might think differently. I know, you could say “No two snowflakes are alike, why should two planets be?”, but they don’t actually have to be ALIKE, just under the same conditions. It might be possible that living organisms lived on Mars at some point in history! The planet right next to us.
As I said, physical contact is not really in reach, unless super intelligent aliens came HERE. But, when you think about it, is that something we want? To be indigenous barbarians in the complete control (at least potentially) of Aliens? Look what happened to the Native Americans when the Europeans settled in the New World.
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RevMen
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You can’t even declare what conditions would be “right.” When you get down to it, life isn’t anything more than self-replicating molecules. We happen to be made out of a particular set of elements, and a very small one at that. Surely there are many other ways “life” could exist. The vast majority of them are probably beyond our understanding.
All I know is I better get a ray gun when they come.
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David West
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“Dragoon” wrote: Woah, you really freaked me out there because November 9th is my birthday (wh– how did he–???) Then I realized it must be the Halo release date.
LOL. Yeah, that is the Halo 2 release date.
About your actual message, I think perhaps if you sit down for a while and imagine just how VAST the Universe is, and how tiny Earth is, you might think differently. I know, you could say “No two snowflakes are alike, why should two planets be?”, but they don’t actually have to be ALIKE, just under the same conditions. It might be possible that living organisms lived on Mars at some point in history! The planet right next to us.
I know that such a vast universe does make life on other planets seem very possible, I’m not denying that. What I’m saying, is that it doesn’t guarantee it. I wasn’t saying that the chances are small for there to be an earth-like planet, even though I doubt there is one like earth. If there is life on other planets, its very possible that they would live in an entirely differant enivronment. All that I was saying was I don’t think that an infinite universe guarantees other intelligent life. One thing that I’ve thought about, is that there could be humans on other earth-like planets.
As I said, physical contact is not really in reach, unless super intelligent aliens came HERE. But, when you think about it, is that something we want? To be indigenous barbarians in the complete control (at least potentially) of Aliens? Look what happened to the Native Americans when the Europeans settled in the New World.
I never said we’d contact them, I was thinking more along the lines of them contacting us, though that, too, is highly unlikely. And, I never said that I wanted to be in complete control of them. I best stop now, before I all of this leads back to Halo…
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WhiteDragon
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“Dragoon” wrote: …sit down for a while and imagine just how VAST the Universe is, and how tiny Earth is…
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” wrote: Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space. Listen… and so on.
I don’t know if the signals received are real or not. However, if they were real, they would be really, REALLY old, since they’ve had to travel so far.
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Dragoon
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Please don’t compare me to Douglass Adam’s. It really makes me look unimaginative.  :wink
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WhiteDragon
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I wasn’t trying to compare you to him. Your statement just made me think of that.
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