Search For Alien Life On 86 Planets Begins

liqs8143 writes "Astronomers from the United States have begun searching for alien life on 86 possible earth-like planets. A massive radio telescope that listens for signs of alien life is being used for this project. These 86 planets are short-listed from 1235 possible planets detected by NASA's Kepler telescope. The mission is part of the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project, launched in the mid 1980s. A giant dish pointing towards each of the 86 planets will gather 24 hours of data, starting from this week."

too bad they cancelled TPF-1

[rubycodez]

we need to take spectroscopic measurements of earth-sized and super-earth-sized planets to detect evidence of life's biochemistry. But our short-sited congress cancelled the Terrestrial Planet Finder. The most monumental scientific discovery of mankind would be life elsewhere, it will need a little investment which is so very minuscule compared to the money we waste on enriching mega-corporations, imperialism and warmongering.

Re:crop circles

[supertrinko]

Have you factored the rotation of the earth into this plan of yours?

Re:crop circles

[JoshuaZ]

I would first search the exoplanets pointed to by the most interesting crop circles from the global crop circles database [cropcircleresearch.com] why do the hard work when the aliens have done it for us, just draw a line from the centre of the Earth, through the crop circle to the appropriate starsystem

So the aliens are coming down to Earth from hundreds of light years away, and leaving hints in crop circles about what planets they are coming from instead of just saying hi? And they happen to use a calling card that is easily duplicated by low level technology? And the aliens happened to start in a handful of Western countries and then spread their message around the globe?

I was talking to my barber a few days ago. Nice chap by the name of Occam. He had some interesting things to say about this sort of claim.

Re:crop circles

[Nidi62]

why do the hard work when the people with rope and wooden boards have done it for us,

Fixed that for you

Re:crop circles

[Opportunist]

Hmm... odd, most reports about contacts have been from some hillbillies high on moonshine.

Re:lol

[aXis100]

OK smartypants, how are you going to detect technology that doesnt exist yet? How will you categorise signiatures from biochemical processes that we have never seen or studied?

We either have to use our own experience as a reference point or not look at all. I vote we look and hope we get lucky.

Re:crop circles

[tnk1]

That's the silliest thing I have ever heard. Even if the aliens have found a way to generate universal peace amongst their own kind right now, they are the results of evolution just like we are, and they had to adapt to their own biospheres much like we did. That means a capacity for conflict. It is unlikely that an alien species who has any idea about evolution and natural selection, which is to say any alien civilization who could detect us or vice-versa, would stare at us in some sort of uncomprehending disbelief.

The only real possibility of that happening is that they are so old a civilization that they have actually forgotten where they themselves came from and even then, they can't be ignorant of the basic conditions that life has to deal with. More likely, they know exactly why we kill one another, they probably have just as much history of it as we do.

In other words, I find the whole E.T. concept of advanced alien civilizations made up of beings who can travel through space in starships, but somehow be unable to comprehend the basic facts of life to be ridiculous.