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It is fascinating. Imagine if we did detect a radio signal from intelligent life elsewhere. What sort of reply would we send them? I imagine it would be every s

It is fascinating. Imagine if we did detect a radio signal from intelligent life elsewhere. What sort of reply would we send them? I imagine it would be every sort of reply imaginable, as everybody with access to a radio telescope gave it their best shot. I expect a lot of new radio telescopes would be constructed also. If we don't receive any such signals, then finding life elsewhere is going to be a long, hard slog. It seems we don't yet have the energy/technology levels required to get a probe to another star within a reasonable amount of time (100 years travel time, would perhaps be reasonable? Could any of our equipment last that long?) Self-replicating space probes that could exponentially explore the entire galaxy seem to be right out of the question, at present.

murtza 13y ago
If you are interested in exploring this topic more, the fiction book Contact by Carl Sagan is based on the premise of detecting a radio signal from intelligent life. It is a great book that you will make you wonder what effects contact from intelligent life elsewhere would have on human behavior.
- dandelany 13y ago
  And if you wonder about the opposite - how human contact would affect the behavior of intelligent life elsewhere - I highly recommend The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.
vidarh 13y ago
Self replicating space probes that could exponentially explore the entire galaxy (or universe) is one of the things that might indicate a sparsely populated universe, or at least one where any other forms of life is quite young. Assuming it is possible to make such probes for a relatively young civilisation, and most civilisations that reach that stage does send out even just one probe that starts relicating, if life is abundant around us we should expect to have swarms of them everywhere. Of course it could be we just can't detect them yet, or that life is abundant but that life old enough to be advanced enough to do this is rare for some reason.
sampo 13y ago
I've got the impression that spectroscopic methods that would be able to detect the major composition of the atmospheres of exoplanets at 10–100 light years away, are almost around a corner now. Maybe in 10 years? Then if we find a planet with an atmosphere that is far from the thermodynamical equilibrium, like our 21% oxygen is because of photosynthesis, then that might be a planet with planetary scale life.

murtza 13y ago

If you are interested in exploring this topic more, the fiction book Contact by Carl Sagan is based on the premise of detecting a radio signal from intelligent life. It is a great book that you will make you wonder what effects contact from intelligent life elsewhere would have on human behavior.

dandelany 13y ago
And if you wonder about the opposite - how human contact would affect the behavior of intelligent life elsewhere - I highly recommend The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.

vidarh 13y ago

Self replicating space probes that could exponentially explore the entire galaxy (or universe) is one of the things that might indicate a sparsely populated universe, or at least one where any other forms of life is quite young. Assuming it is possible to make such probes for a relatively young civilisation, and most civilisations that reach that stage does send out even just one probe that starts relicating, if life is abundant around us we should expect to have swarms of them everywhere. Of course it could be we just can't detect them yet, or that life is abundant but that life old enough to be advanced enough to do this is rare for some reason.

sampo 13y ago

I've got the impression that spectroscopic methods that would be able to detect the major composition of the atmospheres of exoplanets at 10–100 light years away, are almost around a corner now. Maybe in 10 years? Then if we find a planet with an atmosphere that is far from the thermodynamical equilibrium, like our 21% oxygen is because of photosynthesis, then that might be a planet with planetary scale life.