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From: Don Ecker <decker0726.nul> Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 12:31:51 -0700 Archived: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 08:28:16 -0400 Subject: David Whitehouse's Is Anybody Out There? David Whitehouse wrote a very mind-provoking essay titled "Is anybody out there?" concerned with possible negative consequences of extraterrestrials "discovering" humanity here on planet Earth. I am sending this on because while sounding very 'science- fiction'-like, this is a very serious topic. Don ----- Is Anybody Out There? By David Whitehouse August 4, 2007 We are making dangerous discoveries in space. In April, astronomers found, on our cosmic doorstep, a planet dubbed Gliese 581c. Nestling close to a dim red star, it's a rocky world only a little larger than Earth. Like Earth, it could support liquid water. And to scientists, liquid water means the possibility of life. Gliese 581c must be an ancient world, for it circles a star that is far older than our sun. The question is, has any advanced life evolved on that planet, or on the many other places that must be suitable sites, not so very far away? Recently, astronomers told the British Government that we might find life in space. It is only a matter of time, this year perhaps, before astronomers detect a planet even more similar in size and mass to our Earth, circling another star. And when we find that planet, we may discover a lot more than new oceans and land masses. Astronomers have been looking for intelligent life in space since 1960, when Frank Drake started Project Ozma, using a radio telescope to listen for signals from two nearby sun-like stars - Drake knew that radio waves travel more easily through the cosmos than light waves. He didn't hear anything back. Since then, our searches have become more thorough thanks to larger radio telescopes and more sophisticated computers that look for fainter signals. But we still have no signal from ET. Should we want to? This is not just a matter for astronomical research involving distant worlds and academic questions. Could it be that, from across the gulf of space, as H. G. Wells put it, there may emerge an alien threat? That only happens in lurid science fiction films, doesn't it? Well, the threat is real enough to worry many scientists, who make a simple but increasingly urgent point: if we don't know what's out there, why on earth are we deliberately beaming messages into space, to try to contact these civilisations about whom we know precisely nothing? The searchers are undeterred. They argue that because of the vastness of space - even if there are 10,000 transmitting societies nestled in the stellar arms of the Milky Way - we might have to search millions of star systems to find just one. The SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute in California is the only such group that searches the cosmos for signs of intelligent alien life. It does so by listening for radio signals. SETI, which was founded in 1984, has 100 scientists, educators and support staff. Its funding from the American government was cut off in 1992 and it now relies on private donations. Listen to 'Strange Days... Indeed' - The PodCast See: http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/sdi/program/
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