Regarding SETI, the program scans the entire sky, but sometimes will focus on the direction of a given star if there seems to be indication of "something" going on there. Stars are light years away, however. If ET exists, they may well have more sophisticated communication technology than ours - technology capable of instant message transferrence even over vast light years. All stars save but for our own are multiple light years away, so focusing on their -visual- location seems erroneous. Shouldn't we calculate where in the sky it would be right now and scan there instead of the visual location where it hasn't been for many years?
Radio waves are an impractical communications medium across astronomical distances and it's highly doubtful that any ordinary stray signal to ping one of our satellites would be strong enough to seem significant. . I think focusing on radio waves transmitted the "old-fashioned" way is a wasted effort. The only radio waves we could pick up <2 b continued...>
2007-08-18
12:52:59
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10 answers
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asked by
uncleclover
5
in
Astronomy & Space