Alien Life, Coming Slowly Into View

[danlisa]

Doesn't the active search for ET Life seem a little pointless?

Correct me if I'm wrong but I understand the following:

Signals we send out: These take an inordinate amount of time to reach anywhere, receiving a response would take double that. Within the transit time it's conceivable that the replying world would no longer exist by the time the signal reached us. This also applies to listening to space 'signals'.

Identifying habitable planets: Again, the time involved is mind boggling. We can ID a planet that's billions of light years away and say that's a possible earth clone but that image we captured has taken billions of years to reach us. The originating planet would now probably be a hunk of space rock.

What am I missing and how much funding is put to this?

[Gerald]

Not a lot of money relating to this, unfortunately, but the future may provide a different perspective

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by danlisa

Doesn't the active search for ET Life seem a little pointless?

Correct me if I'm wrong but I understand the following:

Signals we send out: These take an inordinate amount of time to reach anywhere, receiving a response would take double that. Within the transit time it's conceivable that the replying world would no longer exist by the time the signal reached us. This also applies to listening to space 'signals'.

Identifying habitable planets: Again, the time involved is mind boggling. We can ID a planet that's billions of light years away and say that's a possible earth clone but that image we captured has taken billions of years to reach us. The originating planet would now probably be a hunk of space rock.

What am I missing and how much funding is put to this?

For perspective there are 7 star systems in 16 light years that feature stars like our sun or close to it. The closest confirmed Extrasolar planet is 10 light years away (it orbits Epsilon Eridani a star similar to our own). The distances involved might not be that big on a cosmic scale.

[Gerald]

To mention just one example, as to our sun, it takes "only" 8 light minutes, and there is ZERO in the context