| | Detecting life on other planetsPage 1 of 3 (1, 2, 3) | When you look at the dark side of the planet earth from space it's not quite dark. You can see light emanating from the surface in populated areas.
So it got me thinking, we are not there yet but our ability to see planets outside our solar system is improving. Picking up a communication is kind of a shot in the dark way to detect life similar to our own on other planets. However, if we get to the point we can detect light from dark areas of a planet there is a good chance that light is being artificially created.
This would put their development near ours. A more advanced society and you might not see the light just because it's a huge waste of energy and there are ways to reduce losing that light energy to space.
Do you think this would work? What other ways, besides basically E.T. calling us, can you think may be ways to detecting intelligent life similar to our own on other planets? | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 12/14/2008 2:05:45 PM | | Mostly so far we can detect extrasolar planets, not see them. Moot point anyway. The current methods of searching for life depend mainly on detection of radio waves, which are...light. Invisible light of particular frequencies is easier to detect and more likely to be artificial than visible light is. | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 12/14/2008 6:30:59 PM | We can currently see planets outwith our solar system
and our ever evolving isomeric idioms dictates some 20-60% stars have planets spinning round em as opposed to the books i read when i was growing up...which said nil.
at the moment, from these said planets of which your as stupidity unaware we can detect some basic elements such as water and methane
You don't know what I'm aware of what I'm not aware of unless you are prone to delusions of psychic visions like the delusions you have of your own ego. I was referring to the detection of man made light. A lot of planets have water and methane you idiot. That does not indicate life like us existing on that planet that we can communicate with. It may be a possible indication of life but not in the way I was referring when I posed the question you didn't answer but just dove into insulting intelligence as most of those with inferior intelligence do because they are so insecure about their own.
I suggest you go read something
I was reading something just before I wrote this which was about the light being emitted from our planet and the energy involved. I had an idea pop in my head and decided to see what other ideas people could come up with. Apparently, you can't come up with any ideas on your own so yes....go read a book so that others can enlighten your dimmed mind incapable of original thought.
You leaped to all kinds of conclusions then personally insulted me....really scientific. Get your PhD out of a cracker jack box? | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 12/14/2008 7:24:43 PM | It will be a long while before we can do such a thing. Even pictures of out own planets are mostly animations and drawings -- real pictures are grainy, and black & white.
Stars shine so much light that dimmer objects like red dwarfs, or even brown dwarfs are almost invisible. Red dwarfs are the most common types of stars, and yet every star you see in the night sky is not a red dwarf, but a rarer, more massive star like our sun, or larger.
Radio waves are the best way so far to detect life. We use electromagnetic waves (light) of all frequencies to detect the planet, and what it's makeup is -- but we cannot literally see it like we can see the moon in the sky. It is far too uh, far. Advanced life may use radio waves, and we would detect it, or maybe they will detect ours that have been beaming into space since the 1930s or so. With so many planets detected, we must filter them, and so we mostly look for ones with organic compounds or elements that are similar to that of Earths. This does not mean life NEEDS these, as it could be an entirely different form of life that may not even be carbon based at all. | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 12/14/2008 7:25:00 PM | we can see em frog. Moot to drivelling if you ask me.
afore you make stuff up please feel free to do a bit of research first or read my posts...which ive commented re this more than once
i really dont make them up you know :( | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 12/14/2008 7:47:15 PM |
However, if we get to the point we can detect light from dark areas of a planet there is a good chance that light is being artificially created.
We are nowhere near that state of technology nor do I think we'll ever get there. The only way we can detect planets in other systems is by detecting gravitational anomalies in the paths of their central stars. We can't see their surfaces. Even if we could, the light coming from the planet would be washed out by the more intense and plentiful light from surrounding stars.
Also, don't forget that the bit of EM spectrum that is visible to us may not be the same slice that is visible to them so our scans would have to span more than visible light.
I agree that detecting a signal from another intelligence is a remote and unreliable possibility but it's more likely than anything else we have right now.
Good question. Don't mind wd, basically a nitwit trying to act smart. Would do well in politics, don't you think? He might be able to see Russia from where he lives. | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 12/14/2008 9:42:33 PM | | There could be life under the ice sheets of Europa which would have profound implications for life here on Earth. Searching for life outside our solar system is difficult given the extreme distances which separate us from other celestial systems. Any form of communication based on radio waves or visible light (blinking light that would indicate some sort of mathematical pattern) would take lifetimes to reach us, and even then...by the time we got it and sent back a reply, they could of wiped themselves out. We might just run into a Von Neumann machine. Any deep space endeavor would require the use of such autonomous machines, minus the development of some breakthrough space travel technology. | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 12/15/2008 12:22:44 AM | | Not to beat a dead horse, but seeing lights on the dark side of a planet isn't proof of intelligent life either- an esspecially volcanic planet would give us simular visuals from the dark side. | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 12/15/2008 6:24:06 AM |
Not to beat a dead horse, but seeing lights on the dark side of a planet isn't proof of intelligent life either- an esspecially volcanic planet would give us simular visuals from the dark side.
Yeah, but if we have that kind of resolution, we could see colors during the day and lights at night. All kinds of spectral information would also be available to us. Of course, we're not going to GET that kind of resolution any time soon. | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 12/15/2008 7:43:32 PM | | Wicked desires...you obviously have some knowledge to share. Why not share it without the mean-spirited comments directed at others you deem to be less informed and therefore (as implied) who think are too lazy to look it up. Discussion forums are here to share, not to put other people down to raise your own fragile ego up. | |
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GGarbo
| | Joined: 10/8/2007
Msg: 11 | |
| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 12/15/2008 8:34:11 PM | Good question. Don't mind wd, basically a nitwit trying to act smart. Would do well in politics, don't you think? He might be able to see Russia from where he lives.
I don't mind him at all. I'm highly amused he removed he had a PhD when I asked him if he got it out of a crack jack box and changed his profession  Hmmm poser perhaps???
As for the light emitting, other light in the galaxy would pose a problem, but it posed a problem back when they discovered the wobbles in orbit. Most methods of planet detection do not rely on direct imaging but on behavior of those things we can see and track. In 60 years, we've gone from not being able to detect them at all to being able to take images of the larger ones. Our technology for direct imaging is actually moving along at a pretty good click.
It might also be possible that there is behavior to artificial light that we don't know about yet and half the time, these discoveries are made by accident when they are looking for something else. So even if we can't see it, there could be behaviors that could help us identify...in the future.
But thinking more, with the current rate our imaging is going, our first indications may be artificial satellites. If there is a species that communicates like we have the compulsion to do, then a natural evolution of that could very well be the creation of satellites. There is no guarantee there though because there are others ways to achieve communication and probably many we haven't thought of.
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 12/15/2008 10:32:09 PM | Wicked desires...you obviously have some knowledge to share.
Don't bet the house on it, sunshine. I've run across too many people like this during my career. The false bravado hides a deep insecurity, usually associated with incompetence. I've enjoyed taking them down although it distracts me from more useful work. Best to just ignore them. That's not the way scientists communicate, even among themselves. Read any science-based mag and you'll see what I mean. Every little point is spelled out to rigorous and tedious detail. This guy's nothing but a poser.
We don't write like idiots. In fact, this kind of bozo would be laughed out of any scientific forum. Never seen a good one act or write like this. Take my advice and move along...nothing to see here. | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 12/15/2008 10:38:10 PM | Our technology for direct imaging is actually moving along at a pretty good click.
You are so right. Below, you will find a link to one of my favorite photographs ever. It's a pic of Saturn from the far side made by the Cassini spacecraft. If you expand the photograph you'll see a little dot through one of the rings in the upper right. That's the little, insignificant mudball that launched Cassini. Not bad for naked apes, huh?
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0610/newrings_cassini_big.jpg
If what you hypothesize ever happens, I hope I'm alive to see it. Wouldn't that be grand? | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 12/19/2008 8:07:16 AM | It would be possible to see artificial light on earth from a fair distance if you had a big enough mirror, accurate enough lenses and something that could filter sodium emission wavelengths. I think.
The mirror may need to be bigger than a planet if you want to check it out from another star but it's achievable, if expensive.
That said, your bug eyed monsters from another star may not use sodium streetlamps, or streetlamps at all. They could just rely on bioluminescent algea for all their lighting needs. Alternatively they may view the universe in the infra red or ultraviolet spectra so we're probably best looking for oxygen + chlorophyl if we're looking for somewhere to go on holiday. Still need a collector the size of the moon or a medium planet to spy on extrasolar planets. | |
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GGarbo
| | Joined: 10/8/2007
Msg: 15 | |
| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 12/19/2008 10:18:10 AM | Very good points shavenape73
When it comes to the points about mirrors and lenses though, I think technological advancement might take care of the size and expense. When I was looking this stuff up, it really is pretty amazing how far we've got in a relatively short period of time.
That said, your bug eyed monsters from another star may not use sodium streetlamps, or streetlamps at all. They could just rely on bioluminescent algea for all their lighting needs.
Good point, our technology when it comes to light is not necessarily the way it had to develop. Kind of fun to think about the way other humanoid type species could find different ways to attack the same problems.
It could be too that they didn't go the route of a 24 hr society the way we have developed. It's not particularly healthy for us as humans to function the way we do using unnatural time keeping systems. If we didn't have unnatural lights, we might have developed a keener sense of vision. A society could advance a long far more natural lines than we have. Just think, if we didn't have light pollution, what the sky would look like. ...WOW. | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 1/19/2009 6:55:20 AM | If there was anything to hear, we would have heard it by now.
Or on the flip side
We really are not that interesting, so no aliens come to visit.
When you think about , what would we have that aliens really would have any interests in. Raw materials are abundantly available on non-inhabited planets , or asteriod belt.
Or in comets, regiosnsimilar to our OORT cloud.
Assuming a species were advanced enough, and avoided blowing themselve sup, I can't imagine any plausiable reason for the expense of travelling to our little corner of the universe for a visit. | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 1/19/2009 11:53:05 AM | You guys are forgetting the single best way to check for intelligent life on other planets, and we have the technology available NOW!
A can which is sent out to another planet connected to a can on our planet by a string.
A really long string.
Huh? Huh? That would so totally definitely work.
Yeah, I know, I'm a genius just waiting on his prize! | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 1/19/2009 12:46:20 PM |
You guys are forgetting the single best way to check for intelligent life on other planets, and we have the technology available NOW!
A can which is sent out to another planet connected to a can on our planet by a string.
A really long string.
We can call this "String theory"....... | |
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Verzen
| | Joined: 12/9/2007
Msg: 20 | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 1/20/2009 12:12:51 PM | There's no guarantee that we'd be able to spot life even if we could somehow acquire detailed images of distant planets. The number of planets we've found is actually quite small, and all signs so far indicate that our solar system is the most heavily populated one (in terms of the number of planets orbiting the primary) in local space. I'm sure our detection radius will improve as technology advances, and we will find more planets and be able to see them more clearly, but there's another problem: The one planet out of millions that has intelligent, advanced life on it may well be far enough away that we wouldn't know about it for tens of thousands of years. Even if they have giant spotlights sweeping into space as beacons, we would still be seeing their version of prehistory.
IMHO, unless we strike it lucky- by either discovering life on a nearby planet, or by somehow breaking the known laws of physics and acquiring FTL travel- we're going to be waiting for a very, very long time indeed to discover advanced alien civilizations similar to our own.
Of course, that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep the lights on for them. Maybe they're looking too.  | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 1/20/2009 7:43:08 PM | | This is a very delicate subject for many people. Since there are now people who have jobs..or careers searching.not for stars,. asteroids.blackholes..supernovas..quasars..but planets which could possibly support life..They are extremely difficult to find because they produce very little light..unlike a star which is basically a gigantic nuclear power plant...How they do it is they find stars and study them...when they wobble...that is a planet tugging its gravitational orbit on the star..once they find that...Then they can determine the type of star...see our planet is known as "the goldylocks" planet ..not too far from a star too be a frozen wasteland..and not too close too be like a blast oven! depending on several factors ...the size of the star...the heat it produces..and approximately the distance the planet is from the star..this gives a possible candidate for a life bearing planet. Now...this does not mean it is intelligent life ..it could be as advanced as bacteria!...intelligent life on the other hand is a whole other matter....since radio waves or signals travel at the speed of light ...all you math maniacs have an equation to figure out..the first radio signal produced from planet earth I believe was a Hitler propaganda speech. so all you have to do is figure out the speed of light times well...a little bit before world war 2. and you have figured how far we've spread our existance on this little blue planet outwards in all directions... Now there is ABSOLUTELY no doubt in my mind the universe it teaming with intelligent life..the problem my friends is DISTANCE! Even if theyve heard our very first signal and immediately returned one...wed all be dead of old age by the time we got it back. This is scientific fact..Now as far as worm holes..well it is possible..but I need scientific evidence to believe this scenario. And one more thing as far as aliens traveling here..abducting or studying us without a trace. The universe would be have to have so much intelligent life it'd be like a trip to your local zoo.. Think about a civilization with technology say a million years ahead of ours.....would travel all this way and not share the secrets of life ...the beginning of it all and if we have souls.and our differences in culture and civilizations...just doesnt make sense. my theory is if we cant go there ...they cant come here..YET!!!!!!! | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 1/20/2009 8:31:33 PM | Beyond the Sky made my point for me.
Assuming we could image exo-planets with such clarity that we could see artificial light sources on the 'dark side', you'd still be looking into the past. Let's say we find such a planet a mere 1,000 light-years away. We'd then be looking at that planet as it was 1,000 years ago.
Since we've only had artificial lights for roughly a century, this alien civilization could currently be centuries ahead of us. Even that is too big a gulf to cross intellectually.
Interesting idea though, good job. | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 1/20/2009 8:45:44 PM | >>>.. Now there is ABSOLUTELY no doubt in my mind the universe it teaming with intelligent life........Now as far as worm holes..well it is possible..but I need scientific evidence to believe this scenario.
Why is it you're able to support the theory of the universe being teeming with life with absolutely no evidence, but other things, like wormholes, you need evidence to believe it? | |
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| Detecting life on other planets
Posted: 1/21/2009 8:11:50 PM | | Its called mathematics and logics. Its as simple as this the universe is far bigger then you could ever even begin to fathem. there are more planets...not blue ones with an ozone layer..and a magnetic field like ours. but literally more "normal" planets then there are grains of sand on the entire earth..anyone with an I.Q. above the low 70's range; would consider that a fact. wormholes and parralel universes are what are known as THEORIES!!!!!!! | |
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