Alien Life, Coming Slowly Into View

[Gerald]

I REMEMBER the first time the concept of another world entered my mind. It was during a walk with my father in our garden in Sri Lanka. He pointed to the Moon and told me that people had walked on it. I was astonished: Suddenly that bright light became a place that one could visit.

Schoolchildren may feel a similar sense of wonder when they see pictures of a Martian landscape or Saturn’s rings. And soon their views of alien worlds may not be confined to the planets in our own solar system.

After millenniums of musings and a century of failed attempts, astronomers first detected an exoplanet, a planet orbiting a normal star other than the Sun, in 1995. Now they are finding hundreds of such worlds each year. Last month, NASA announced that 1,235 new possible planets had been observed by Kepler, a telescope on a space satellite. Six of the planets that Kepler found circle one star, and the orbits of five of them would fit within that of Mercury, the closest planet to our Sun.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/op...awardhana.html

Note: March 26, 2011

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by Vendor

He pointed to the Moon and told me that people had walked on it. I was astonished: Suddenly that bright light became a place that one could visit.

Sadly, we've got morons here on earth called Apollo Hoax believers who question even this basic tenet nowadays.

[Gerald]

So true

[Torplexed]

If, on the other hand, an alien radio signal were to be detected, that would constitute a more clear-cut and exciting moment. Even if the contents of the message remained elusive for decades, we would know that there was someone “intelligent” at the other end.

I most confess I'm becoming pessimistic on this note too. The one tantalizing radio burst that SETI detected on August 15th 1977, the so-called "WOW!" signal has never been repeated since.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal

The Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal detected by Dr. Jerry R. Ehman on August 15, 1977, while working on a SETI project at the Big Ear radio telescope of The Ohio State University. The signal bore expected hallmarks of potential non-terrestrial and non-solar system origin. It lasted for the full 72-second duration that Big Ear observed it, but has not been detected again. Much attention has been focused on it in the media when talking about SETI results.

Amazed at how closely the signal matched the expected signature of an interstellar signal in the antenna used, Ehman circled the signal on the computer printout and wrote the comment "Wow!" on its side. This comment became the name of the signal.

If there is intelligent life out there, it's either on a lower technological plane, or a far different one.

[Gerald]

I Remember That, it was amazing, but probably very far away

[Torplexed]

What would be ironically funny is if the "WOW!" signal was the last power discharge as the alien transmitter was powered down. Fifty million years after detecting our biosphere and getting no response, they finally gave up just as we started to listen.

[Sammi79]

Here's to hope - to find any evidence of life, intelligent or not, that did not originate on our quaint little earth, would be the most mega thing since the moon landings or ever for that matter. Even a tiny fossil bacteria. Not in my lifetime I think.

This pretty much sums it up for me though, the last line in particular :