How close are real aliens?

[kittynh]

For my new skeptic website, I need a good short article about where there might possibly be REAL life "out there", how far away it would be (as in how long it would take to travel here), possibly some of the dangers faced by a space traveller (fuel, time, hitting space junk).

Simple language for the lay person would be best. Just the main points (I'm not sure all my sources are the most up to date). You would get credit, and possibly an alien abduction protection hat!

I'm dealing with people that fear they have been abducted by aliens, and some scientific input about REAL aliens (or the possibility of life on other planets) would be most welcome. I hear again and again that "Science" is covering up the fact that aliens exsist. I often try to assure people that far from covering up proof of alien life, science is trying to find alien life.

Simple would be best, think someone that doesn't understand the scientific process.

A little bit of fun would also be great.

Please PM me if you want to help!

And seriously, the alien protection hat is great!

[Correa Neto]

Breaks my heart, but here's one...
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/04/03/warp-drives-probably-impossible-after-all/

[aviolet4u]

This won't help, I don't know about scientific proof, but whenever I go to spiritual forums they say that they live amongst us already. Their ships are parked here but in warp state.

An empath sometimes says she senses there being mortals instead of spirits, she sees walls and doors where there aren't supposed to be any.

That doesn't sound so bad accept for the fact that they want to appear and enslave us one day. That little tidbit I don't like lmao- my post is no help whatsoever. Sorry.

[CapelDodger]

Simple language for the lay person would be best.

I can do that.

You would get credit, and possibly an alien abduction protection hat!

Screw credit, I'd want a cut of the shiny-hat proceeds.

I'm dealing with people that fear they have been abducted by aliens ...

Ka-ching!

A little bit of fun would also be great.

I'd giggle all the way to the bank. Figuratively speaking. With PayPal, who needs to leave home at all?

And seriously, the alien protection hat is great!

I could help spice-up your sales-pitch.

[ExMinister]

Robert Park has a fun chapter about this in his recent book Superstition. If you have access to the book, it's in chapter 12 and called Running the Numbers (pg. 208, hardcover).

Basically it's about getting his class to determine how likely it is that someday in the future humans will be able to travel to another star and its planet (or beings from another star/planet to travel to here). So he has them discuss: How far is it to the nearest star? How long would they be willing to travel? How fast must they travel round trip in that time? How many people would be in the crew? How big must the spacecraft be? What would they need to take along? So they agree on a total mass of the spacecraft, a number for the annual energy consumption of all humans on earth to use as a reference point. They then calculate the energy required to accelerate a spacecraft of that size to the velocity needed to make the trip in that period (one half the mass times the velocity squared) and compare that with annual human energy consumption on the entire planet. So, it turns out that the energy needed for a trip to the nearest star in the lifetime of a human is many thousands of times greater than all the energy that is expended on Earth in a year. Then he tells them: "The bad news is that we are never going to visit another star. The good news is that they're not going to visit us." :)

I don't know if that's what you had in mind but I thought it was clever. Might not be too hard for someone talented to write up an article that was similar, giving credit where it's due.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Ahem. Clarke's Law:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

;)

[Jeff Corey]

Scenario from Phil's Death From The Skies. Self replicating Von Neumann Machines from where ever. Some wiseasses on a planet that coalesced a very long time ago decided that they were never gonna be able to travel the galaxy because of the speed of light limit, so they said, "Let's send out these self replicating machines as a of way of saying screw you to anybody else out there"
But over the countless eons, somehow these machines changed. They mutated. Some became more complex, some died off as a result. Some became what could be termed sentient, and started to question their programmed mission, which was to gobble up everything and reproduce. "Screw this, don't we have better things to do?", they communicated.
So when at last they ventured to an insignificant planet 2/3 out on one of the arms of their spiral galaxy and discovered a planet with meat bags actually producing electromagnetic communications, they were astounded and delighted to discover that such a thing could happen.
So they are out there now, enjoying reruns of "I Love Lucy" and trying to figure out what "Monk" is all about. Their favorite movie is Galaxy Quest, for obvious reasons,

[godless dave]

Hypothetically, there could be planets in the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, that are too small for us to detect, and there could be life on them. If there is, it isn't using radio or anything like it, or we would be able to detect it.

[Jeff Corey]

Alpha Centauri is, what? 4.3 light years distant? Anyway, think of the volume of space. The radio waves that might be sent out wouldn't necessarily be directional and dispersed a lot.

[godless dave]

I don't think we'd be watching their TV shows, I just think we would detect radiation in that spectrum that we wouldn't expect.

[Jeff Corey]

If you don't expect it, how do you detect it?

[ExMinister]

...I'm dealing with people that fear they have been abducted by aliens, and some scientific input about REAL aliens (or the possibility of life on other planets) would be most welcome. I hear again and again that "Science" is covering up the fact that aliens exsist. I often try to assure people that far from covering up proof of alien life, science is trying to find alien life.

Simple would be best, think someone that doesn't understand the scientific process.

A little bit of fun would also be great.

Please PM me if you want to help!

And seriously, the alien protection hat is great!

But don't a lot of the abductees think their abduction experiences are happening in some invisible, alternate dimension or reality? In which case, scientific explanations probably won't sway them

Ahem. Clarke's Law:



;)

Isn't that the truth. It does have some embarrassment potential if the aliens land in 2040. On the other hand, it was a pretty creative way to get his students to think.

[Roboramma]

So, it turns out that the energy needed for a trip to the nearest star in the lifetime of a human is many thousands of times greater than all the energy that is expended on Earth in a year. Then he tells them: "The bad news is that we are never going to visit another star. The good news is that they're not going to visit us." :)

Cool approach, but rather unimaginative conclusion. It assumes that:
1. The only way to go to another star is to do so fully awake and on life support the whole time. (some sort of suspended animation may be possible.
2. To send adults there. (sending fertilized embryos is a possibilitiy)
3. To send biology there. (of course machines are even easier to send, and as AI advances, may end up being more efficient at any task we want done)
4. That our technology won't make the needs for such a ship smaller. (ie. miniturization of life-support systems)
5. That our terrestrial energy resources won't increase. (fusion power? more tapping of solar, wind, geothermal, etc.)
6. That a civilization is limited to the energy resources of its home planet. (there is a hell of a lot of energy radiating off that big old fusion power plant in the sky)
7. That intelligent life is generally as large and massive as we are, and as difficult to keep alive over interstellar distances (and timeframes). (mice could go to the stars much cheaper than us, being so much smaller)

And probably some others.

[MG1962]

Alpha Centauri is, what? 4.3 light years distant? Anyway, think of the volume of space. The radio waves that might be sent out wouldn't necessarily be directional and dispersed a lot.

Alpha Centauri is a double star, so the goldilocks zone is going to be seriously screwed, I dont believe there are any current theories for planetary formation in such a tight system. The two stars orbit about every 80 years

[ExMinister]

Cool approach, but rather unimaginative conclusion. It assumes that:
1. The only way to go to another star is to do so fully awake and on life support the whole time. (some sort of suspended animation may be possible.
2. To send adults there. (sending fertilized embryos is a possibilitiy)
3. To send biology there. (of course machines are even easier to send, and as AI advances, may end up being more efficient at any task we want done)
4. That our technology won't make the needs for such a ship smaller. (ie. miniturization of life-support systems)
5. That our terrestrial energy resources won't increase. (fusion power? more tapping of solar, wind, geothermal, etc.)
6. That a civilization is limited to the energy resources of its home planet. (there is a hell of a lot of energy radiating off that big old fusion power plant in the sky)
7. That intelligent life is generally as large and massive as we are, and as difficult to keep alive over interstellar distances (and timeframes). (mice could go to the stars much cheaper than us, being so much smaller)

And probably some others.


Such as:
8. That we won't one day have warp drive, shields, and food replicators.




(BTW if you're not a Star Trek fan, that won't make a lot of sense.)

[Jeff Corey]

"Alpha Centauri is a double star, so the goldilocks zone is going to be seriously screwed, I dont believe there are any current theories for planetary formation in such a tight system. The two stars orbit about every 80 years."
http://www.ucolick.org/~javiera/alphacen.shtml

[MG1962]

"Alpha Centauri is a double star, so the goldilocks zone is going to be seriously screwed, I dont believe there are any current theories for planetary formation in such a tight system. The two stars orbit about every 80 years."
http://www.ucolick.org/~javiera/alphacen.shtml

Although a bit older, these guys go into the practicality of keeping a planet stable in the system

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1997AJ....113.1445W/0001445.000.html

My only critisim of Javiera Guedes' article, is he assumes that neither star's obit has changed since the system formed. He also needed to extend the accretion process by a factor of three to get a result.

The problem pointed out in my article is that the stablity zone only extends to about 3 AU from the primary. I believe this would create a situation were each star's acretion disk is pelting the other with material.

So as soon as anything sizable forms, it will suffer repeated bombardment and in my opinion fragmentation.

Either way we will find out pretty soon when the new scope gets deployed.

[Cuddles]

Alpha Centauri is a double star, so the goldilocks zone is going to be seriously screwed, I dont believe there are any current theories for planetary formation in such a tight system. The two stars orbit about every 80 years

It's actually a triple star. Not that I'm picky or anything.

For my new skeptic website, I need a good short article about where there might possibly be REAL life "out there", how far away it would be (as in how long it would take to travel here), possibly some of the dangers faced by a space traveller (fuel, time, hitting space junk).

The basic problem is that we just don't know. There may well be life as close to us as Mars and Jupiter. On the other hand, we may be the only life in this galaxy or possibly even the entire universe. The Drake equation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation) is a good start. However, don't listen to anyone who tells you an answer based on it. Bascially, the Drake equation is a list of the things we need to know in order to estimate the prevalence of life in the universe. Since we don't know what most of the numbers are to go into it, we can't know the actual answer.

[Monketey Ghost]

Aliens could be as close as Europa. Complex lifeforms, intelligence? Perhaps one of the nearest G-type stars.

I have high hopes but don't expect answers within my lifetime.

[MG1962]

It's actually a triple star. Not that I'm picky or anything.

Of course :) But Promixa Cent is so far out and so faint, I have extreme doubt it would influence the system. I think it is something like 10,000 AU from A and B. It is interesting that it is one of the most frugal stars we know and will be around a lot longer than the sun

[bryan]

Hello...

We are also in the debate with the UFO "Abductees" etc.. and have discovered that no matter what you try the believers will always have a skewed viewpoint and there is not much that can be done to educate them.

These people are not looking for any type of proof they are looking for ways to bring people into the viewpoint of the "Proof" that we already have and let us know about the many levels of coverup and conspiracy.

You also need to be aware of the associations that these types make with other pseudo science topics such as “Free energy, Clean Technology, UFO Propulsion systems (that we already have.. lol) etc…”

Explaining to someone that the possibility that there is an alien life form is very slim when the people that you are talking to are already convinced that they have either seen or even communicated with the E.T.’s.

The real study for life on other planets is being done at places like SETI. Real scientists like Dr. Frank Drake and Seth Shostak are the people that you would want to refer people who are looking for the reality.

Thanks,
Bryan
Rocky Mountain Paranormal

[firecoins]

I was abducted by alien microbes who wanted to give their version of a cold.

[fuelair]

This won't help, I don't know about scientific proof, but whenever I go to spiritual forums they say that they live amongst us already. Their ships are parked here but in warp state.

An empath sometimes says she senses there being mortals instead of spirits, she sees walls and doors where there aren't supposed to be any.

That doesn't sound so bad accept for the fact that they want to appear and enslave us one day. That little tidbit I don't like lmao- my post is no help whatsoever. Sorry.
Read the link above. If in warp they are roasted.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Hypothetically, there could be planets in the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, that are too small for us to detect, and there could be life on them. If there is, it isn't using radio or anything like it, or we would be able to detect it.

From what I've read, we would not be able to detect our own radio leakage from beyond the solar system even with a radio telescope a couple of orders of magnitude more sensitive than Arecibo. That is, we couldn't detect broadband radio signals. It would require someone sending a narrow band signal aimed at us (or where we would be when the signal travelled the distance).

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/astronomy/faq/part6/section-12.html

[casebro]

Re: SETI concepts, it seems to me we can easily detect the power out put from a whole star. Just look upwards on a clear night. And lately, our technology has advanced enough to detect some extra-solar planets. Just how huge of a transmitter could we possibly detect? An S.O.S. of exploding moons perhaps? Anything less would disappear due to inverse square laws, wouldn't it? We could be surrounded by other societies that we can't hear at this distance...[/ Twilight Zone tones]

[kittynh]

well the site if for the fence sitter. The true believers are going to believe no matter what. Im actually going to include in the site, advice that I've got from people that really believe they have been abducted by aliens, and how they deal with it. It's goofy woo stuff, but hey, it may help someone that is really miserable with this issue.

I give advice at least twice a week to fence sitters and people that really believe they are being abducted. Philip Klass and his book, "Alien Abductions, A Dangerous Game" really show how miserable the average abductee is, and how they are being exploited by people with a book to sell and an agenda. Plus the whole UFO believer community is split between "nuts and bolts" and "abductee" types.

My feeling, and what I have been able to help people with, is to see if this is making your life miserable...change it.

First stop, visit your physician.

I've had 4 people that with a simple change in their meds have "lost contact" with the aliens (hey, I've seen aliens when I've taken too much Nyquil)

I've had 2 brain tumors discovered in people!

I've had sadly too many cases of people that have taken ecstacy and end up hearing voices and having aliens visit (I don't know if it's just ecstacy or all drugs, so far it seems that I've just delt with exstacy users). Risperdal is a BIG help with that.

I've had people happy as clams to be visited by aliens, and I'm like "well if you enjoy it, that's great!"

A lot of people have PTSD (they think, and hey if you were being tortured by aliens you might suffer from it also). Therapy is a great help for them (NOT hypnosis).

I just get upset that people assume they have to live with the misery of this, and that so many people gladly exploit and feed into this fantasy.

I don't disbelieve in life out there. BUt I want some science in the site also. Because for some of the "fence sitters" they will go "oh hey maybe it's my medication I take for my high blood pressure" (which oddly it once was for someone).

The believers , hey it's how they define their lives. Support groups are fun social occasions.

For the fence sitter, some science would be nice

[godless dave]

If you don't expect it, how do you detect it?

With radio telescopes, a commonly used astronomical tool.

[LarianLeQuella]

From what I've read, we would not be able to detect our own radio leakage from beyond the solar system even with a radio telescope a couple of orders of magnitude more sensitive than Arecibo. That is, we couldn't detect broadband radio signals. It would require someone sending a narrow band signal aimed at us (or where we would be when the signal travelled the distance).

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/astronomy/faq/part6/section-12.html


Why is it that no one seems to understand the inverse square? :p You beat me to it Joe.