The search for aliens
Are we the only island of life in the vastness of space, or is our Galaxy teeming with other civilisations?
We've long been intrigued by the idea that we are not alone. The search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) - was born from this curiosity - the use of sophisticated scientific methods to try to detect a signal coming from life elsewhere in the Galaxy.
In the 1960s, radio astronomy was put to work in the search. Radio telescopes surveyed the sky, searching for something that might come from an alien civilisation. For years they heard nothing except the background hum of space. Then one day in 1977, a radio telescope in the US received a signal...
A signal from space
Watch Brian tell the story of the signal picked up by the Big Ear radio telescope in 1977.
Clip from Human Universe (BBC Two)
The Wow! signal fitted the profile of an alien transmission. Other explanations have been ruled out. Transmitters on Earth can’t use the same frequency, and the signal was too narrow to come from natural sources. Interstellar scintillation, the audio equivalent of a star twinkle, has also been dismissed.
Never to be heard again
Scientists immediately searched for a repeat of the Wow! signal.
They scanned the sky in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, where the signal had come from. And as technology improved, more sensitive telescopes were put on the case, along with software that was designed to find signals among the background noise.
But despite several decades of searching, the signal has never been seen again. It remains a mystery.
So how likely are we to ever find intelligent life, somewhere in our Galaxy?
The Drake Equation
In 1961, astronomer Frank Drake devised an equation to estimate the number of detectable civilisations in our Galaxy.
Drake estimated there should be between 1,000 and 100,000,000 detectable civilisations. Scientists have continually revised his figures, based on a better understanding of some of the variables in the equation. A conservative estimate today is that there are between two and 50,000. But the real value of the Drake equation is to highlight the areas we must focus on in the search for alien life.
“Where is everybody?”
If there are tens of thousands of detectable civilisations in our Galaxy, then why haven’t we picked up any obvious signs of life?
This contradiction is known as the Fermi Paradox, after physicist Enrico Fermi. He argued that if a large number of alien civilisations existed, some would have been around much longer than us and would have developed technologies to colonise other planets.
Some of these civilisations would have had more than enough time to spread across the Galaxy. Yet he hadn't had any indication that they exist. Nor have we since – apart from, perhaps the Wow! signal in 1977.
The idea is best expressed in Fermi’s simple question “Where is everybody?” There are several possible answers...
No comments:
Post a Comment