CAPSLOCKSTUCK
Spaced Out Lunar Tick
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| System Name | Party On |
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| Video Card(s) | HD 7970 |
| Case | a plank of wood |
| Audio Device(s) | seperate amp and 6 big speakers |
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| Mouse | cheap |
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A leading astronomer has concluded that advanced civilisations are very rare or 'entirely absent' in the galaxies surrounding our own.
He used sensitive new telescopes to search for signatures of waste heat being emitted from planets that might indicate the presence of an advanced alien civilisations, but came up short.
After scouring nearby galaxies which show unusually high infrared emissions, which would indicate they were 'abonormally hot', the scientist said it could simply be a natural phenomenon.
Professor Michael Garrett, scientific director of Astron, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy and a researcher at the University of Leiden, said: 'Some of these systems definitely demand further investigation but those already studied in detail turn out to have a natural astrophysical explanation too.
WHAT IS THE KARDASHEV SCALE?
The Kardashev scale was created in 1964 by Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev as a way of categorising a civilisation's technological advancement.
It is based on the amount of energy a civilisation is able to harness and use.
The hypothetical scale has three levels:
Type I civilisation uses all available resources on its home planet and has mastered the use of nuclear fusion.
Type II civilisation harnesses all the energy of its star while a Type III harnesses energy that exists across the whole galaxy it inhabits.
Earth has currently still to reach even Type I, and four further levels have been proposed to the original scale.
For example, some have proposed a Type IVcivilisation capable of harnessing the energy across an entire universe.
'It's very likely that the remaining systems also fall into this category but of course it's worth checking just in case.'
Professor Garrett was particularly looking for signals in the mid-infrared part of the spectrum which are thought to be a sign of advanced civilisations capable of harnessing energies on galactic scales.
These so called Kardashev Type III civilisations are thought to be capable of tapping into the huge energies contained within black holes and gamma ray bursts.
This sort of civilisation is thought to be the most likely to be capable of long-distance space travel.
A team of astronomers led by Dr Jason Wright from Penn State University recently drew up a list of several hundred candidate galaxies from around 100,000 that might host these civilisations.
Nasa has also been searching for signs of distant planets that may have the conditions to support life with its Kepler Space Telescope.
However, Professor Garrett, whose results are presented in the European journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, said he has found little evidence to suggest there were any galaxies near by inhabited by such advanced life forms.
Instead, he said the kind of infrared emissions coming from these candidate galaxies are more likely to be caused by natural astrophysical processes.
Nasa's Kepler space telescope has been searching the skies for signs of planets that may be hospitable to life. It recently discovered a planet called Kepler 452b which is the most like Earth yet discovered (pictured)
In particular, he believes they may be caused by dust generated and heated by regions of massive star formation.
'The original research at Penn State has already told us that such systems are very rare but the new analysis suggests that this is probably an understatement, and that advanced Kardashev Type III civilisations basically don't exist in the local universe,' Professor Garrett said:
'In my view, it means we can all sleep safely in our beds tonight – an alien invasion doesn't seem at all likely.'
However, Professor Garrett now hopes to use similar techniques to help search for less advanced Kardashev Type II alien civilisations.
Such civilisations are still considerably more advanced than our own on Earth, which has yet to reach the Kardashev Type I level.
He said: 'It's a bit worrying that Type III civilisations don't seem to exist.
'It's not what we would predict from the physical laws that explain so well the rest of the physical universe. We're missing an important part of the jigsaw puzzle here.
'Perhaps advanced civilisations are so energy-efficient that they produce very low waste heat emission products – our current understanding of physics makes that a difficult thing to do.
'What's important is to keep on searching for the signatures of extra-terrestrial intelligence until we fully understand just what is going on.'
Earlier this year, a group of physicists led Adam Stevens from the department of physical sciences at The Open University proposed a similar idea for searching for alien life.
In the paper, Observational signatures of Self-Destructive Civilisations, the team claims that if intelligent life is spread far and wide across the universe, chances are they have developed similar technologies to us - including the development of nuclear and chemical weapons.
And, like on Earth, they could use these weapons to start wars and bring about their own demise.
With this mind, the researchers studied the various ways in which such alien civilisations could destroy themselves and established that signs of this destruction would be visible using telescopes on Earth.
This includes nuclear wars, bioterrorism, the so-called 'grey goo' scenario and planetary pollution.
The current thinking around the hunt for alien life centres around the Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation.
The Fermi Paradox questions why have we not found aliens, despite the existence of hundreds of billions of exosolar systems in our galactic neighborhood in which life might evolve, and was devised by Italian physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
The Drake Equation, first presented by radio astronomer Dr Frank Drake in 1961, details the specific factors need for such civilisations to develop.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
Dr Drake said that any search for distant intelligent life must also be a search for distant technology.
With this in mind, Adam Stevens from the department of physical sciences at The Open University, in Milton Keynes with colleagues from the University of Edinburgh, University of St Andrews, and Cornell University wanted to see if such technology would create visible 'signatures'.
For each scenario, they detailed the types of signals that each would emit into the atmosphere and the likelihood of these signals being picked up with technology on Earth.
They believe that this approach may present the best chance of finding any evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth.
THE $100 MILLION HUNT FOR ALIEN LIFE BACKED BY STEPHEN HAWKING
A new search for intelligent alien life using two of the world's most powerful telescopes has been launched by leading scientists including Professor Stephen Hawking.
The telescopes will scour one million of the closest stars to Earth for faint signals thrown out into space by intelligent life beyond our own world.
Scientists taking part in the $100 million (£64 million) initiative will also scan the very centre of our galaxy along with 100 of the closest galaxies for low power radio transmissions.
In a second initiative, an international competition will be held to generate messages representing humanity and planet Earth, which may one day be sent to alien civilisations.
The new search for intelligent life, which promises to cover 10 times more of the sky than previous attempts, is backed by Russian billionaire entrepreneur Yuri Milner, who set up the Breakthrough Prize for scientific endeavours.
The attempt to find signs of alien life, which has been named the Breakthrough Listen Initiative, will draw on the expertise of leading scientists, physicists and astronomers.
Professor Hawking, who has in the past said there is certainly alien life out there but has warned humanity against trying to contact them, was among those to back the project.
SUPPORT SETI
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
He used sensitive new telescopes to search for signatures of waste heat being emitted from planets that might indicate the presence of an advanced alien civilisations, but came up short.
After scouring nearby galaxies which show unusually high infrared emissions, which would indicate they were 'abonormally hot', the scientist said it could simply be a natural phenomenon.
Professor Michael Garrett, scientific director of Astron, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy and a researcher at the University of Leiden, said: 'Some of these systems definitely demand further investigation but those already studied in detail turn out to have a natural astrophysical explanation too.
WHAT IS THE KARDASHEV SCALE?
The Kardashev scale was created in 1964 by Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev as a way of categorising a civilisation's technological advancement.
It is based on the amount of energy a civilisation is able to harness and use.
The hypothetical scale has three levels:
Type I civilisation uses all available resources on its home planet and has mastered the use of nuclear fusion.
Type II civilisation harnesses all the energy of its star while a Type III harnesses energy that exists across the whole galaxy it inhabits.
Earth has currently still to reach even Type I, and four further levels have been proposed to the original scale.
For example, some have proposed a Type IVcivilisation capable of harnessing the energy across an entire universe.
'It's very likely that the remaining systems also fall into this category but of course it's worth checking just in case.'
Professor Garrett was particularly looking for signals in the mid-infrared part of the spectrum which are thought to be a sign of advanced civilisations capable of harnessing energies on galactic scales.
These so called Kardashev Type III civilisations are thought to be capable of tapping into the huge energies contained within black holes and gamma ray bursts.
This sort of civilisation is thought to be the most likely to be capable of long-distance space travel.
A team of astronomers led by Dr Jason Wright from Penn State University recently drew up a list of several hundred candidate galaxies from around 100,000 that might host these civilisations.
Nasa has also been searching for signs of distant planets that may have the conditions to support life with its Kepler Space Telescope.
However, Professor Garrett, whose results are presented in the European journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, said he has found little evidence to suggest there were any galaxies near by inhabited by such advanced life forms.
Instead, he said the kind of infrared emissions coming from these candidate galaxies are more likely to be caused by natural astrophysical processes.
Nasa's Kepler space telescope has been searching the skies for signs of planets that may be hospitable to life. It recently discovered a planet called Kepler 452b which is the most like Earth yet discovered (pictured)
In particular, he believes they may be caused by dust generated and heated by regions of massive star formation.
'The original research at Penn State has already told us that such systems are very rare but the new analysis suggests that this is probably an understatement, and that advanced Kardashev Type III civilisations basically don't exist in the local universe,' Professor Garrett said:
'In my view, it means we can all sleep safely in our beds tonight – an alien invasion doesn't seem at all likely.'
However, Professor Garrett now hopes to use similar techniques to help search for less advanced Kardashev Type II alien civilisations.
Such civilisations are still considerably more advanced than our own on Earth, which has yet to reach the Kardashev Type I level.
He said: 'It's a bit worrying that Type III civilisations don't seem to exist.
'It's not what we would predict from the physical laws that explain so well the rest of the physical universe. We're missing an important part of the jigsaw puzzle here.
'Perhaps advanced civilisations are so energy-efficient that they produce very low waste heat emission products – our current understanding of physics makes that a difficult thing to do.
'What's important is to keep on searching for the signatures of extra-terrestrial intelligence until we fully understand just what is going on.'
Earlier this year, a group of physicists led Adam Stevens from the department of physical sciences at The Open University proposed a similar idea for searching for alien life.
In the paper, Observational signatures of Self-Destructive Civilisations, the team claims that if intelligent life is spread far and wide across the universe, chances are they have developed similar technologies to us - including the development of nuclear and chemical weapons.
And, like on Earth, they could use these weapons to start wars and bring about their own demise.
With this mind, the researchers studied the various ways in which such alien civilisations could destroy themselves and established that signs of this destruction would be visible using telescopes on Earth.
This includes nuclear wars, bioterrorism, the so-called 'grey goo' scenario and planetary pollution.
The current thinking around the hunt for alien life centres around the Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation.
The Fermi Paradox questions why have we not found aliens, despite the existence of hundreds of billions of exosolar systems in our galactic neighborhood in which life might evolve, and was devised by Italian physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
The Drake Equation, first presented by radio astronomer Dr Frank Drake in 1961, details the specific factors need for such civilisations to develop.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
Dr Drake said that any search for distant intelligent life must also be a search for distant technology.
With this in mind, Adam Stevens from the department of physical sciences at The Open University, in Milton Keynes with colleagues from the University of Edinburgh, University of St Andrews, and Cornell University wanted to see if such technology would create visible 'signatures'.
For each scenario, they detailed the types of signals that each would emit into the atmosphere and the likelihood of these signals being picked up with technology on Earth.
They believe that this approach may present the best chance of finding any evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth.
THE $100 MILLION HUNT FOR ALIEN LIFE BACKED BY STEPHEN HAWKING
A new search for intelligent alien life using two of the world's most powerful telescopes has been launched by leading scientists including Professor Stephen Hawking.
The telescopes will scour one million of the closest stars to Earth for faint signals thrown out into space by intelligent life beyond our own world.
Scientists taking part in the $100 million (£64 million) initiative will also scan the very centre of our galaxy along with 100 of the closest galaxies for low power radio transmissions.
In a second initiative, an international competition will be held to generate messages representing humanity and planet Earth, which may one day be sent to alien civilisations.
The new search for intelligent life, which promises to cover 10 times more of the sky than previous attempts, is backed by Russian billionaire entrepreneur Yuri Milner, who set up the Breakthrough Prize for scientific endeavours.
The attempt to find signs of alien life, which has been named the Breakthrough Listen Initiative, will draw on the expertise of leading scientists, physicists and astronomers.
Professor Hawking, who has in the past said there is certainly alien life out there but has warned humanity against trying to contact them, was among those to back the project.
SUPPORT SETI
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
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