The Greatest Question:

Its been discussed and thrown around countless times on this and on other science forums, as well as at dinner parties and piss ups with groups of guys and gals at school reunions.
Some such as Seth Shostak believes we'll have convincing evidence of life off this Earth within 20 years. Although the definitive answer to the question is simply as yet we "Do not know" one way or the other, common sense, logic, numbers and most of all science, suggests that life is out there, somewhere, sometime...at many and all levels of developments.
Most I suppose are now aware of the new search to show we are not alone......

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Hawking_launches_biggest-ever_search_for_alien_life_999.html

Hawking launches biggest-ever search for alien lifeBy Robin MILLARDLondon (AFP) July 20, 2015

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British cosmologist Stephen Hawking on Monday launched the biggest-ever search for intelligent extraterrestrial life in a $100-million (92-million-euro), 10-year project to scan the heavens.

Russian Silicon Valley entrepreneur Yuri Milner, who is funding the Breakthrough Listen initiative, said it would be the most intensive scientific search ever undertaken for signs of alien civilisation.


"In an infinite universe, there must be other occurrences of life," Hawking said at the launch event at the Royal Society science academy in London.

"Somewhere in the cosmos, perhaps, intelligent life may be watching.

"Either way, there is no bigger question. It's time to commit to finding the answer, to search for life beyond Earth.

"It is important for us to know if we are alone in the dark."
more at the link....
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Part of the search will entail the Parkes radio telescope in Central west New South Wales Australia, about 360kms from where I live and which I had the privilege of visiting a few months ago.

The hunt for ET will boost Australian astronomy
July 21, 2015 by Lewis Ball, The Conversation

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The 64-metre Parkes Radio telescope will be instrumental in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Credit: CSIRO/David McClenaghan, CC BY


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-07-boost-australian-astronomy.html#jCp

What a tremendously great initiative, although of course success is certainly not guaranteed primarily due to "time and distances" involved.
Still worth the effort for mankind's greatest question..

 

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What are we going to do if we find any?

 

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Not much. Since anything we find would be many light years away, communication would be slow.

 

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Wow. That should be interesting.

 

Know.

 

Actually there are many exoplanets that are less than 50 light years from earth. The closest confirmed exoplanet is 14.8 ly from earth. The closest may be 4.1 ly away at Alpha Centuri, where a possible earth sized planet may reside.

 

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Send them junk mail.

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I have Posted remarks similar to the following in several Threads.

The history of the Earth strongly supports the notion that life exists else where in the universe & is a common occurrence. This is based on the fact that life appeared on Earth almost as soon as it was possible for it to exist (circa 3.7 billions years ago).

The history of the earth also supports the notion that technological cultures are rare, with most galaxies having none & few, if any, having more than one.

The Neandertals & the Denisovans had potential similar to that of Homo Sapiens. Both became extinct while still at a Stone Age level of development.

The dinosaurs existed for circa 100 millions years or more. The last ones were no closer to developing a technological culture than the first ones. This indicates that technology is not an inevitable result of evolution.

Aside from having potential, a creature must also have evolutionary pressure favoring the development of technology.

Note that the octopus seems to have the potential for the development of technology, but no evolutionary pressure.

An octopus can move in three dimensions.
It can easily find & overpower prey.
It does quite well without tools. ​

 

Yes you have. It still doesn't get away from the fact that in a near infinite Universe in content and extent, and with "the stuff of life" being everywhere we have observed, the likelyhood of ETI arising somewhere sometime is certainly more likely than not.
And of course if the Universe was actually infinite, than that likelyhood would be a certainty.

 

A few years back astronomers thought they'd discovered several planet in a habitable zone in the solar system for Gilese 581. Which is 20.22 lyr from Earth. So I was interested in what would be the analysis for the relativistic rocket. A interstellar rocket that accelerates at a constant g_earth for 1/2 the journey and deccelerate at a constant g_earth for the other 1/2 of the journey arriving at Gilese 581 in ~ 6.62 years rocket proper time. So the rocket could accomplish the round trip in 13.24 years rocket proper time. The elapsed proper time in the earth frame would be 40.44 years. An interesting thing to discuss is the possibilities associated with communication between the rocket and the earth over the course of the entire journey. Something which would need attention is understanding how the Rindler Horizon effects the reception of a signal from earth during the acceleration phase. When they get to 581 the ship could initiate a continious signal which would begin being received, on earth, 20.22 years later. The news of the project would be 20.22 years old. Just think of the complexity associated with the design of such a ship and everything required to support life during the journey. Cudos for the Russian dude who's fronting the bill for the project Hawking has associated himself with.

 

I guess you are not used to irony.

 

You bet!
The most incredible result I could ever see in this inevitable continuing and ongoing search for ETI, is that whatever this result or future results come up with, we can never assume that ETI does not exist somewhere/sometime in this big wide wonderful awesome Universe. But let's say for the sake of a silly argument that if we could assume that impossible assumption, that is assume that we are alone, then what questions would mankind be faced with then?
I see that highly impossible scenario if it was shown to be true, to raise far many more questions, then if we found ETI in every solar system.
Imagine it. We are alone! Wouldn't our religiously inclined folk have a field day!
And as Ellie Arroway said to a group of children......
I'll tell you one thing about the universe, though. The universe is a pretty big place. It's bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it's just us... seems like an awful waste of space. Right?

 

http://www.cnet.com/news/kepler-another-earth-nasa-planet/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler-452b

The distances to such worlds are so great, only a tight spot beam communication would be likely ever to be received, even with lower deep space data rates and longer and more robust error correction codes. The entity on the other end of any such communication would need to have the same capabilities or ones in advance of our own.

Planets like Earth evidently exist in abundance in our galaxy, but talking to ET or anything like it is unlikely to happen on a time scale approaching "soon", even with all the optimism and optimizations advanced to that endeavor which are currently available. ET would need to have spotted us by a means similar to Kepler, and then acted on that discovery by sending probes and/or communication gear our way to relay back to them whatever it found.

It is probably time for us to begin contemplating the possibility of exploiting the trajectories of odd comet flybys that graze our Sun to extend the range of our remote sensing and exoplanet surveillance. Landing instrument packages on such objects and keeping them attached until the comet is on a trajectory that leaves our solar system would appear to be a chance worth taking if it meant that we would eventually get better exoplanet surveillance without expending a prohibitively large amount of fuel (and also liquid helium, as Kepler did) in the process. The technical challenges would be exceedingly great in terms of rad-hard instrument packages and energy efficiencies, but well worth the cost in terms of going where no man has gone before.

 

Paddoboy: From your Post # 10

The above relates to my Post #9

I did not claim that there were no technological cultures in the universe, only that they are rare.

Your Post implies that I was claiming that Technological ET cultures were not-existent. If that was your intent, you did not read my Post carefully. I doubt that you were deliberating misrepresenting my statements.

There is very close to a zero probability for receiving signals from ET or sending signals to them.

Powerful directed signals are extremely likely to be sent in the wrong direction.

The inverse square law mitigates against signal strength at the destination strong enough to be detected.
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It is difficult for me to believe that the SETI Folks expect to receive signals from ET or have their signals received by ET.

I wonder about the motivations & expectations of the SETI folks. I wish somebody would provide funds to support some of my hobbies.

BTW: I doubt that our normal radio/TV broadcasts would be detectable at the distance of Mars & would certainly not be detectable at Ort Cloud distances. Note that our MarsProbe/Earth communications were via directed signals.

Assume a technological culture existing on a Proxima Centauri Planet, circa 4-5 light years from us. I wonder if we could establish communications with them. With us orbiting Sol & them orbiting Proxima Centauri, it seems like a formidable task. At greater distances, it seems very close to impossible.

There are very few stars closer than 20 light years from us. I wonder if we could communicate with a space probe from Earth when/if it got 10-20 or more light years from us.

 

I don't think that is the greatest question at all. There are other questions that , to me, are far more important. An example is finding ways to overcome diseases that are killing humans by the millions. That would be one of the greatest questions that would be on the top of the list plus many others.

That said I'd think the question isn't if there is life other than ourselves in the universe but where the aliens are located.

 

There has to be life...as we know and define it, elsewhere in the universe. It's a given! To assume that there isn't would be quite ridiculous, to say the least.

 

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I did not claim that and it was not my intent. In fact I agree.

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at least for advanced civilisations. But what is your definition of "rare"? One per galaxy? One per 10 galaxies?
And what if the Universe was infinite?
But let's ignore the last one that for the moment.
Even if it were one advanced civilisation every 10 galaxies, there would still be countless numbers involved overall.
And I have heard some say that if the distances between advanced civilisations were so prohibitive as to make contact impossible for the forseeable future, then they may as well not exist, a suggestion I find laughable.
To finally verify the existence of ETI would as the tilte of the thread suggests, be an answer to the greatest question ever asked.
Simple life elsewhere is a given and probably more common than we yet realise.

This has been discussed before and I believe your claims are false.
Sure finding or receiving a signal would be like finding a needle in a haystack but most certainly still worth the time and effort.
I commend SETI and this new effort and congratulate those involved

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Actually likewise, I wonder about your own motivations particularly the rather silly derisive comment on suggesting it as a hobby.
It will answer mankind's greatest question, and eventually in the affirmative.
And all mankind should take a part and including the responsibilities.



And as I also said previously, let's say for the sake of a silly argument that if we could assume that impossible assumption, that we are alone, then what questions would mankind be faced with then?
I see that highly impossible scenario if it was shown to be true, to raise far many more questions, then if we found ETI in every solar system.
Imagine it. We are alone! Wouldn't our religiously inclined folk have a field day!

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Totally agree Ken, for the reasons already stated.