I am a big fan of SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. If you don't know much about the SETI project, then take a look at seti.org. Buy some stuff there too so that you can support their mission, which is to find some proof that advanced life exists outside of Planet Earth.
How do we know that SETI is really doing the right thing, though? Can you possibly expect to detect any signal at all from 5 light years away using a planetary network of telescopes? One would think not because a radio wave gets wider (dispersion) as it travels farther. As it disperses, its energy dampens, and eventually the incident energy is slow low that it can not be detected above the background noise. Essentially, the noise we hear in the cosmic background, is made up of widely dispersed radio waves that have been bouncing around for billions of earth years.
Is there a way to test out the SETI thesis and make some use of their telescope network? Well, if you're a fan of the Pioneer space probes, then you might think along the lines of this thought too. Pioneer 10 is outside of our solar system, or so we think. Its radio telemetry is getting very faint for lots of reasons, one of which is its distance, and the other its weak transmitter power.
If SETI truly can detect a radio signal at 4.2 light years, then it should be able to easily pick up the weak Pioneer 10 signal. About 5 years ago, Pioneer was 7.5 billion miles away from earth, which is about 0.00128 light years away, or a fraction of the distance to our closest solar neighbor, Proxima Centauri.
SETI, are you up for the challenge? Turn your network at Pioneer 10 and tell us what it is saying. If you can't pick up Pioneer 10, then you're likely not going to pickup anything from Proxima Centauri, or any other extrasolar system. Pioneer 10 is so close, that its signal should be as if it were shouting at you. How could you fail?
If SETI fails to pickup the Pioneer probe, then maybe we can divert their money to other more useful endeavors, like global water reclamation and treatment, or Project Longshot. I certainly want to know if SETI's extensive terrestrial radio array can pickup the closest KNOWN radio signal from an advanced civilization. If nothing else, it will confirm that our money is being well spent on useful research.
How do we know that SETI is really doing the right thing, though? Can you possibly expect to detect any signal at all from 5 light years away using a planetary network of telescopes? One would think not because a radio wave gets wider (dispersion) as it travels farther. As it disperses, its energy dampens, and eventually the incident energy is slow low that it can not be detected above the background noise. Essentially, the noise we hear in the cosmic background, is made up of widely dispersed radio waves that have been bouncing around for billions of earth years.
Is there a way to test out the SETI thesis and make some use of their telescope network? Well, if you're a fan of the Pioneer space probes, then you might think along the lines of this thought too. Pioneer 10 is outside of our solar system, or so we think. Its radio telemetry is getting very faint for lots of reasons, one of which is its distance, and the other its weak transmitter power.
If SETI truly can detect a radio signal at 4.2 light years, then it should be able to easily pick up the weak Pioneer 10 signal. About 5 years ago, Pioneer was 7.5 billion miles away from earth, which is about 0.00128 light years away, or a fraction of the distance to our closest solar neighbor, Proxima Centauri.
SETI, are you up for the challenge? Turn your network at Pioneer 10 and tell us what it is saying. If you can't pick up Pioneer 10, then you're likely not going to pickup anything from Proxima Centauri, or any other extrasolar system. Pioneer 10 is so close, that its signal should be as if it were shouting at you. How could you fail?
If SETI fails to pickup the Pioneer probe, then maybe we can divert their money to other more useful endeavors, like global water reclamation and treatment, or Project Longshot. I certainly want to know if SETI's extensive terrestrial radio array can pickup the closest KNOWN radio signal from an advanced civilization. If nothing else, it will confirm that our money is being well spent on useful research.