On November 16, 1974, a 300-meter radio telescope located in the crater of the Puerto Rico volcano sent the first message to extraterrestrial civilizations into outer space. The signal was sent to the M13 star cluster in the constellation Hercules. The message contains numbers from 1 to 10, atomic numbers of chemical elements, the population of our planet, an image of the solar system with the mark of the Earth in it. If intelligent beings on one of the planets in the constellation of Hercules receive and understand our signal, the answer will come in about 48 thousand years. The message is transmitted automatically every time the radio telescope is free. Who knows, maybe this period will pass, and our distant descendants will learn that we are not alone in the Universe.
In a quiet, calm suburb of Tallinn - Piritu, about two hundred Soviet and nineteen foreign scientists gathered for the All-Union Symposium. The hall was dominated by the most usual business atmosphere typical for such scientific conferences.
The only thing that was unusual was the cause for which the specialists had gathered here and about which there was a talk. Scientists have been discussing the problem … of finding intelligent life in the universe. But it seems that quite recently such questions were completely in the hands of science fiction writers. And here you are, astronomers, physicists, biologists, philosophers, representatives of the most serious and respectable sciences are taking bread from science fiction writers. The most burning and exciting question for all: "Do they really exist?"
V. S. Troitsky, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences:
- Physicists have established that life in the Universe is subject to the same laws. There is ample evidence that the forms of matter are the same even billions of light years from Earth. Recently, about 50 complex organic molecules have been discovered in space, which serve as bricks for the emergence of life under certain conditions. During the formation of planets, such molecules can fall on the surface and serve as the starting material for the emergence of organisms. Thus, the universe has all the conditions for the emergence of life. In addition to our Galaxy, there are more than 10 billion such systems. It is likely that some planets have highly developed civilizations.
So, one of the largest scientists states with certainty that we are not alone, other civilizations exist. If so, the next question is where to find them? There are many hypotheses on this score. For example, you need to look for life only where there are planetary systems. That is, like ours - the Sun, and the planets revolve around. Unfortunately, experts have not yet discovered a single planetary system similar to ours. Apparently, this is a matter of the future. But the search circle immediately narrows.
Is there even the slightest clue, a hint of where they live?
…. In the 20s of our century, when the radio was making its first steps, the scientific world was shocked by a sensation. The signals of the station transmitting the Morse code were received along with a certain duplicate text that followed the original signal with a small interval. Secondary signals always came with some delay. Interestingly, the delay time varied in the most bizarre ways. The mysterious radio echo could not be explained for a long time.
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The English astronomer D. Lunan suggested that in this way an extraterrestrial civilization is trying to come into contact with us.
They tried to decipher the signals. It turned out that they carried in themselves the image of a part of the constellation Leo. The famous American astronomer D. Drake investigated two nebulae in the constellation Leo, but so far there are no results. Until today, a mysterious radio echo excites the imagination of specialists.
And here is another curious suggestion about where the brothers in mind might be.
The message of the doctor of physical and mathematical sciences V. Striizis:
- It is usually believed that no traces of the activities of extraterrestrial civilizations in space have yet been found. However, there are many astronomical objects and phenomena in nature that can be understood as a result of the activities of highly developed civilizations. Such objects can include blue straglers, carbon and barium dwarfs, stars with an exceptional abundance of some usually rare elements. The theory of stellar evolution has not yet been able to provide a satisfactory explanation for these objects.
In the Galaxy, according to experts, there are objects that occupy a special position in it in terms of their radiation, properties - say, pulsars, supernova explosions. If different civilizations send targeted signals to these objects, and logically they should come to this very idea, then sooner or later our "paths" will intersect.
Now there are many assumptions about how best to search for extraterrestrial civilizations. In the USSR and abroad there are several groups looking for radio signals from space. The USSR Academy of Sciences has developed a program of such research! Until now, the main direction of the search has been listening to radio signals streaming from space in order to catch one - of artificial origin.
At the symposium, V. S. Troitsky presented very interesting calculations. There are now two ways to send signals to draw the attention of other civilizations to our existence. The first is sending directional signals. That is, as if in the forehead - one transmits, the other receives. But the likelihood of such contact is very small.
The second way is to send an omnidirectional signal. What does it mean? Suppose some highly developed civilization decided to make itself felt to other intelligent beings that are within 10 thousand light years from it. (A light year is the distance that light travels in a year at a speed of 300 thousand kilometers per second.) For this, an extraterrestrial civilization must build an omnidirectional beacon that would continuously send signals to all ends. This beacon can be a ball, as if lined from the inside with antennas. The radius of such a ball must be at least 5 thousand kilometers. Its weight will be only 500 times less than the mass of the Earth. For the antenna to work, power would be needed in excess of the power of radiation falling from the Sun on the entire surface of our planet. The construction of such a fantastic transmitter will requireby the most conservative estimates, about 3 million years.
It can be seen from these calculations that, listening to messages coming from space, we seem to transfer all the difficulties of signal transmission to other civilizations. But these difficulties turn out to be practically insurmountable even for highly developed civilizations. Therefore, we must look forward to finding a narrowly targeted transmission. Detecting such signals is, of course, much more difficult, because we do not know exactly when they will be directed to Earth. This means that we need to be partners in this search and send signals ourselves continuously. Only then can we expect results. One of the specialists in establishing contact with extraterrestrial civilizations, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences NS Kardashev, believes that the program for searching for brothers in mind can give positive results even in the near future. I would like to believe.
And yet the problem is far from simple.
Message from Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences I. Shklovsky:
- An Eastern saying: if you are waiting for a friend, then do not mistake the beat of your heart for the sound of his horse's hooves. We are waiting for contact, but so far there is not a single reliable fact that would indicate that we are not alone. I believe that life, which originated on Earth 3-3.5 billion years ago, became intelligent and technologically advanced due to the rarest combination of unlikely circumstances. Therefore, in my opinion, there is no other intelligent life other than ours. If there are supercivilizations, then why have they not yet established contacts with us?
I. Shklovsky raised a very interesting question at the conference. Indeed, if there are other advanced civilizations, then why have they not yet contacted?
Some scientists put forward such a hypothesis on this score. There are a lot of extraterrestrial civilizations, but we serve as a kind of reserve for them. A sort of humanity in a test tube. We will never find aliens because they just don't need it. They are watching us from the side. Of course, this is too unlikely an assumption. Another hypothesis is much more serious. We do not know the technical level and capabilities of other worlds. Maybe they transmit to us the message of their existence, but not with the help of radio waves, but, say, through neutrinos or another signal carrier, to which we have simply not yet grown up. Well, time will tell. You just have to wait patiently and search hard.
From the book: "SECRETS OF THE TWENTY CENTURY". I. I. Mosin