Posted: 18 Jun 2014 04:48 AM PDT
Concentrated laser light in the universe may singal the presence of a technological civilizations that might be living on distant planets. “Think about humanity 300 hundred years from now,” said Geoffrey Marcy this past August. Marcy is currently Professor of Astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, famous for discovering 70 out of the first 100 exo planets. “Suppose we set up a colony on another planet … the most likely way we will communicate with (humans on those planets) is with radio signals or light beams.” Marcy believes that there may be other civilizations in the universe that are years ahead of human society and might currently be communicating with radio signals in a network he calls a “galactic Internet.”
Marcy uses advanced telescopes to detect concentrated signals in space. He believes these signals may indicate the existence of another advanced civilization, because nothing in the universe is known to emit such signals. The Templeton Foundation recently granted him $200,000 for his proposal.
GeoffmarcyMarcy leads a team that specializes in searching for laser light for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, program at UC Berkeley, a program that uses advanced telescopes to detect strong signals in an attempt to find technological civilizations in the universe.
His work is only a section of the collective effort of the organization. UC Berkeley has established a reputation as the world’s largest organization — since NASA’s 1993 SETI program — for exploring advanced life in the universe.
As more and more Earthlike planets are being discovered, some scientists feel that there is no longer anything “particularly special about Earth” that makes it uniquely conducive to life, according to Andrew Siemion, a project scientist in the UC Berkeley SETI group.
Every year, the program gathers approximately $1 million in funding, which is spread over 10 unique projects, according to Dan Werthimer, director of the UC Berkeley group. Distinct categories each concern a certain range of the electromagnetic wave spectrum, because the researchers cannot be sure at which wavelength other civilizations may be emitting their signals.
Werthimer says that the research is significant whether or not signs of extraterrestrial life are found.
“If we do not find life elsewhere in the universe, then that means we are one in trillions and should take incredibly good care of life on this planet,” Werthimer said.
Like Marcy, all of the researchers involved are respected scientists in their field who work simultaneously on other research projects in campus departments such as astronomy and electrical engineering. Werthimer and his colleagues, for example, made the first images of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.
“You have to know we are not searching for crop circles or flying saucers,” Marcy said with a smile.
So far, the only achievements of SETI at Berkeley are advancements in technology, as researchers have yet to find direct clues of other advanced civilizations. Nevertheless, Marcy says that these advancements are benefiting astronomy and science in general.
“I am not an optimist,” Marcy said, describing the likelihood of finding intelligent extraterrestrial life. “I would bet on my house that we would fail … But this is such an important question, the question of ‘Are we alone?’, and the only way to find out is to risk it.”
In the image at the top of the page, a glowing laser shines forth from the VLT, piercing the dark Chilean skies, its mission is to help astronomers explore the far reaches of the cosmos. To help them achieve this, professional stargazers use something that sounds as though it has come from science fiction: a laser guide star that creates an artificial star 90 km above the surface of the Earth. The laser energizes sodium atoms high in the Earth’s mesosphere, causing them to glow and creating a bright dot that appears to be a man-made star.
Observations of how this “star” twinkles are fed into the VLT’s adaptive optics system, controlling a deformable mirror in the telescope to restore the image of the star to a sharp point. By doing this, the system also compensates for the distorting effect of the atmosphere in the region around the artificial star. The end result is an exceptionally crisp view of the sky, allowing ESO astronomers to make stunning observations of the Universe, almost as though the VLT were above the atmosphere in space.
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