Scientists from Harvard and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have come up with the assumption of the existence of alien intelligence. In their opinion, the fast radio bursts recorded by the telescopes could have come from spaceships from other galaxies. RT tells how you can test the hypothesis of American scientists and why interest in the search for aliens has faded.
A signal from a distant ship?
The first of the so-called fast radio bursts, which lasted for several milliseconds, was discovered in 2007. In total, about 20 such radio pulses were recorded. Their energy is very high, and they came from galaxies located billions of light years from the Solar System. Two American scientists from Harvard and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics suggested that the source of the signal could be some kind of beacons or light sails of spaceships.
In the scientific community, the suggestion of Avi Loeb and Manasvi Lingam has caused skepticism, which is not surprising. “In science there is no room for blind faith, this is an area of evidence,” Loeb himself commented on the situation. - To decide what is probable and what is not ahead of time means limiting one's possibilities. It is worth proposing ideas, and then judging by the data received."
Loeb and Lingam have verified a number of their assumptions by calculation. Scientists approached the calculations from two points of view: on the one hand, they needed to show that the amount of energy that the signals speak of would not destroy the potential structure that emitted them. On the other hand, they considered the possibility of building a ship or some kind of device capable of emitting a similar radio signal. Calculations have shown that a conditional artificially created source twice the size of the Earth could indeed accumulate enough energy and produce a radio burst comparable to those recorded by scientists.
"The idea of the work is quite peculiar (Avi Loeb, however, sometimes publishes such discussion articles) and was made, apparently, within the framework of the Breakthrough Foundation project of Yuri Milner, which is connected, among other things, with the possibility of sending a ship on a light sail to the nearest star," noted in interview RT candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, senior researcher at the State Astronomical Institute. PC. Sternberg Moscow State University, popularizer of astronomy Anton Biryukov.
Avi Loeb / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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“Still, in the astrophysical environment, the idea that fast radio bursts are extraterrestrial civilizations is considered marginal in the sense that it is an“extra entity”. Theories suggesting the natural origin of these phenomena, for example, neutron stars with strong magnetic fields, are not yet closed, it is somehow not entirely serious to talk about this,”the expert added.
Insufficient justification
Themselves Loeb and Lingam, talking about the results of the calculations, urged colleagues to check the correctness of their assumptions and even suggested a method.
The fact is that if the source of radio bursts is created artificially and really is light sails or a beacon, then the signal should be repeated regularly. In order to confirm or refute the creative assumption of astrophysicists, you need to try to track the frequency of the signal. If the radio bursts are not regular, then, according to the authors of the work, their assumptions about the source of the pulses can be completely excluded.
By the way, the researchers themselves consider the version of the lighthouse, which creates periodic fast radio bursts, the least likely. According to them, it is difficult to think of a reason why an alien civilization would build it. The creation of a lighthouse just for the sake of declaring itself seems to the authors of the work insufficient reason.
According to Anton Biryukov, there are no obvious flaws in terms of formulas and calculations in the work. “But this does not mean that astrophysicists explained the fast radio bursts by extraterrestrial civilizations. According to the work, we can only conclude that under certain conditions - not entirely realistic from the point of view of modern terrestrial technologies - engineering structures can produce flashes with characteristics, some of which are close to the parameters observed in fast radio bursts. Even the authors themselves do not pretend that they "explained everything." As part of their idea, the observed rate of outbreaks requires billions of planets inhabited by intelligent beings. Here the obvious question immediately arises: if there are so many of them, then why did we not find them earlier? " - he noted.
Paradoxical situation
The question of the possibility of establishing contact with some extraterrestrial life became actual in the 1950s in connection with the development of technology and the first flights abroad of the earth's atmosphere.
Back in 1950, physicist Enrico Fermi formulated his famous paradox. "Where is everyone?" - this is perhaps the shortest formulation of the Fermi Paradox. The question of where, in fact, other advanced civilizations are and why the inhabitants of the Earth have never encountered them, gave rise to many explanations. Among them - the tendency of aliens to "stay at home", their covert observation of the Earth and the probable absence of intellectually developed life elsewhere in the Universe.
Enrico Fermi AFP
The massive interest of both scientists and governments in this topic was reflected in specific projects. So, NASA's program called SETI ("Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence"), launched in 1959, has long been funded from the US budget.
In 1960, radio astronomer Frank Drake proposed a special formula to estimate the likelihood of detecting life like on Earth. With its help, you can calculate the likely number of alien civilizations that want to meet with humanity, based on several indicators.
The Drake equation takes into account the number of stars that form per year in our galaxy; the proportion of stars with planets; the average number of planets (and satellites) with suitable conditions for the emergence of a civilization; the likelihood of the birth of life on a planet with suitable conditions; the likelihood of the emergence of intelligent life on a planet on which there is life; the ratio of the number of planets, whose intelligent inhabitants are capable of contact and seek it, to the number of planets on which there is intelligent life; the lifetime of such a civilization (that is, the time during which the civilization exists, is able to make contact and wants to make contact).
Frank Drake AFP
For literally several decades, scientists have been able to develop methods of communication over gigantic distances. The problem of contact with alien civilizations has been discussed at the international level for several decades in a row. However, the disappointment was growing.
Following the results of the Third Soviet-American SETI Conference, held in 1991 at the University of California at Santa Cruz, at which the "SETI paradox" was discussed, it was reported:
"The paradox stimulated useful discussions about the nature of extraterrestrial civilizations, but one should not exaggerate its importance: no constructive conclusions about the nature of extraterrestrial civilizations could be obtained on its basis."
Then, in the early 1990s, the US government stopped funding the SETI program. In addition, the SETI Institute began operating in 1984. The purpose of its creation was to study the indicators that are taken into account in the Drake equation.
In the 1990s, scientists recorded the first exoplanets. In understanding the conditions in which life can exist, they also moved forward. At the same time, as can be seen from specialized studies, with rare exceptions like the work of Avi Loeb and Manasvi Lingam, they mainly talk about determining the conditions for life on newly discovered exoplanets and about attempts to find out whether life existed on Mars in the distant past.
Anna Odintsova