Tag: Aliens
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Officials explain why they closed Sunspot Solar Observatory (and it wasn’t aliens)
The Richard B. Dunn Solar Telescope is the centerpiece of the Sunspot Solar Observatory on Sacramento Peak in New Mexico. (National Science Foundation Photo) After days of fighting rumors about alien visitations, the managers of the Sunspot Solar Observatory in New Mexico say they’re reopening the facility — and have shed more light on the reason…
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Scientists come up with revised ‘Rio scale’ to rate claims of extraterrestrial contact
SETI pioneer Jill Tarter pays a visit to the Allen Telescope Array in California, one of the prime sites for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. (Credit: SETI Institute) For almost 60 years, efforts to pick up signs of extraterrestrial civilizations have yielded a big fat zero, but there have been plenty of false alarms to…
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How do we get our message across to the extraterrestrials? The answers are evolving
Astronomers and artists sent a binary-coded radio transmission in the direction of an extrasolar planet known as GJ273 b in 2017. (METI International Illustration / Danielle Futselaar) LOS ANGELES — Last year, scientists sent a binary-coded message telling the aliens what time it was. Next year, it’ll be the periodic table of the elements. And…
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What if scientists find signs of alien life? Experiment suggests we won’t freak out
An artist’s conception shows the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, monitoring a distant star and its planets. (NASA Illustration) AUSTIN, Texas — If extraterrestrial life exists, there’s a chance we’ll detect it sometime in the next 20 years. And then what? A recently published study suggests that most folks will take the news calmly, if…
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How scientists are expanding the spectrum for SETI and the search for alien life
This map from the University of Puerto Rico’s Planetary Habitability Laboratory shows the known planetary systems within about 100 light-years from Earth, plotted on a logarithmic scale. The systems with potentially habitable exoplanets are highlighted with red circles. (PHL @ UPR Arecibo) BERKELEY, Calif. — Twenty years after the movie “Contact” brought the search for…
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‘Sónar Calling’ campaign broadcasts music and messages to an alien super-Earth
The target of the “Sonar Calling” binary-coded radio transmission is a planet known as GJ273 b. (METI International Illustration / Danielle Futselaar) Scientists and artists have banded together to beam coded radio transmissions toward a star that has a potentially habitable planet, just 12.4 light-years from Earth. “Sónar Calling GJ273b” is the latest effort to communicate…
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Voyager at 40: ‘The Search for Life in Space’ puts big question on the big screen
“The Search for Life In Space” touches on several frontiers in astrobiology. (MacGillivray Freeman) What better way to celebrate 40 years of NASA’s interplanetary Voyager mission than with an eye-filling movie that brings the decades-old story up to date? “The Search for Life in Space,” an IMAX 3-D documentary that opens at the Pacific Science…
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Alien-hunting Breakthrough Listen project tracks strange series of 15 radio bursts
Intriguing radio signals have been picked up via the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. (NRAO Photo) Breakthrough Listen, a $100 million initiative aimed at stepping up the search for alien signals, says it’s picked up an intriguing series of 15 fast radio bursts emanating from a dwarf galaxy 3 billion light-years away. It’s way…
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Astronomers now think they know what that ‘weird’ radio signal from space was
The “Weird! Signal” from Ross 128, detected on May 12, is highlighted by the red box in this chart of frequency signal strength over time. (PHL @ UPR Arecibo) A week ago, astronomers using the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico were intrigued about a radio signal they picked up in May, apparently from the…
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The internet goes all atwitter over U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s questions about Mars civilization
U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., asks about Mars’ ancient past. (House Science Committee via YouTube) What game was U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., playing when he asked Caltech geochemist Kenneth Farley whether there was any evidence of an ancient civilization on Mars? The question was an add-on at today’s House Space Subcommittee hearing on NASA’s…