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I work for the NRAO but I am not a radio astronomer, but my sense of it jibes with yours. Planets are mostly so close to their host star from our perspective th
by fusiongyro 10y ago
I work for the NRAO but I am not a radio astronomer, but my sense of it jibes with yours. Planets are mostly so close to their host star from our perspective that to distinguish signal between the two would require extraordinary sensitivity. But that sensitivity also means that you have to point very precisely. A less precise instrument can cover more sky at once but then you can't pick out individual sources as well and brighter sources (like stars) would swamp weaker sources like terrestrial radio/television signals.
I don't think we have enough information to tune the values in the Drake equation to make meaningful predictions. We'd need observations to do that, but the observations are, as you point out, difficult enough that we don't know if they're absent or we just can't see them yet.
- freeduck 10y agoIf they use encryption it would be very hard to detect a sinal UPDATE We have had computers for less than a 100 years, and with i2p we hav already created a technoligy that would hide us from other aliens
- fusiongyro 10y agoEncryption will make a signal look like noise, but first you have to be able to separate that source from the host star, and I think even doing that is difficult. I think that's the more fundamental problem.
- freeduck 10y agoCould be but first you have to find a candidate star. And with all radom noise where would you start
- fusiongyro 10y agoI think you're kind of missing the point. According to the Drake equation and what we know about exoplanets now, you start by pointing to any star, any at all. The problem is that you won't be able to distinguish signal from the planet(s) from signal from the star.