Which constellations or Solar systems would be a good place to look for Intelligent life and is close to us?

Question

I'm talking about planets that may be able to support life or already have it.

Answer 1

This question cannot be answered with any degree of certainty.

Unfortunately the planet finding techniques we use today (transit of planets across the face of the parent star, gravitational "micro"-lensing, periodic doppler shifts in stellar spectra) are unlikely to be sensitive enough to find terrestrial worlds in a star's so called habitable zone. The planets listed above are mostly the product of the Doppler shift technique, and generally find very high mass planets in close orbit around their parent star. Given our admittedly feeble understanding of the formation of such planets, their presence almost precludes the present of terrestrial mass worlds in the habitle zones of their parent planets.

Experiments are being planned that will produce data that can answer your question, probably with targets cued (but not constrained) by some of the other techniques. So the answer to your question is in our grasp, however it will be 10-20 years.

Read about terrestrial planter finder (TPF): http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/TPF/tpf_index.cfm

and ESAs Darwin: http://www.esa.int/esaSC/120382_index_0_m.html

Answer 2

Well, if you are a planet hunter then the star named Peg 51 in the constellation Pegasus is the answer. My freinds have found 3 planets there one is thrice the size of Jupiter revolving around nearly 203 million km( gas giant), second one is a rocky one but some 189 million km away and the third one is 5 times bigger than earth and must be nearly 120 million km too close but still there is a chance. Any wobling star is a sign that it's got a planet,
our Jupiter pulls the sun nearly 9 million miles when it reaches it reaches far. Imagine how much do this giant planets apply on Peg 51?

Answer 3

The website solstation.com has a list of candidate stars, complete with orbital graphics and information on each. Just to name a few:
Epsilon Eridani - Eridanus
Tau Ceti - Cetus
Keid, aka 40(Omicron2) Eridani 3-Eridanus (in Star Trek lore, this is where Vulcan is located)
Sigma Draconis-Draco
Alpha Centauri 3-Centaurus

Answer 4

Even if we do find a good place to look for intelligent life, how do we find it there? We can't just send a radio message and wait for a reply. Think about it, if a planet is 3000 ly away (relatively very close to us), a radio message would take 3000 years to get there, and a reply 3000 years to get back, assuming they are even listening for a message from space.

Answer 5

The nearest three stars with known planets or minor planets are:

Epsilon Eridani B (10.5 light years away) : 1 definite planet, another suspected

Tau Ceti (11 light years away) : an asteroid belt 10 times as massive as our own

Gliese 876 (15 light years away) : 3 known planets, one of which is as small as 7 earth masses.

Also promising is HD 69830 (41 light years away) which has 3 Neptune-size planets all in the habitable zone and an asteroid belt 25 times as massive as our own

SEARCHING FOR EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE (SETI)

Overview
Visiting another civilization on a distant world is presently beyond human capabilities. However, it is currently technologically feasible to develop a communications system which uses a powerful transmitter and a sensitive receiver to search the sky for extraterrestrial worlds whose citizens have a similar inclination as terrestrials.

Assumptions
SETI is not generally viewed by scientists as a trivial task. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is 100,000 light years across and contains approximately a hundred billion stars. Searching the entire sky for some far-away and faint signal is an exhausting exercise. A number of assumptions are needed for SETI to be feasible.

A basic assumption of SETI is that of "Mediocrity": the idea that humanity is not exotic in the cosmos but in a sense "typical" or "medium" when compared with other intelligent species. This would mean that humanity has sufficient similarities with other intelligent beings that communications would be mutually desirable and understandable. If this basic assumption of Mediocrity is correct, and other intelligent species are present in any number in the galaxy at our technological level or above, then communications between the two worlds should be inevitable.

Another assumption is that the vast majority of life-forms in our galaxy are based on carbon chemistries, as all life-forms are on Earth. While it is possible that life could be based around elements other than carbon, carbon is well known for the unusually wide variety of molecules that can be formed around it.

The presence of liquid water is also a useful assumption, as it is a common molecule and provides an excellent environment for the formation of complicated carbon-based molecules that could eventually lead to the emergence of life.

Another assumption is to focus on Sun-like stars (spectral type G) . Very big stars have relatively short lifetimes, meaning that intelligent life would likely not have time to evolve on planets orbiting them. Very small stars provide so little heat and warmth that only planets in very close orbits around them would not be frozen solid, and in such close orbits these planets would be tidally locked to the star, with one side of the planet perpetually baked and the other perpetually frozen. (However, some speculate that a thick cloud cover may mitigate these differences.)

About 10% of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy are Sun-like, and there are about a thousand such stars within 100 light-years of the Sun. These stars would be useful primary targets for interstellar listening.

The nearest 2 stars in spectral class G, with their distances in light years from us

Alpha Centauri A G2 4.36 ly
Tau Ceti G8 11.88 ly

These are the only two G spectral type stars within a distance of 5 parsecs (16 ly)

Delta Pavonis is a star about 19.9 light years away from Earth. It is in constellation Pavo. It is a dwarf star of spectral type G7. It has been identified by Maggie Turnbull and Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute as the "Best SETI target" in a survey of nearby stars. Delta Pavonis is the nearest sun-like star not a member of a binary or multiple star system

51 Pegasi is a Sun-like star 15.4 parsecs (50.1 light-years) from Earth in the constellation Pegasus. It was the first Sun-like star to be found to have a planet orbiting it, a discovery that was announced in 1995. Its planet has been nicknamed Bellerophon.

GJ 3021 is a 6th magnitude star in the constellation Hydrus. It is of note for being a relatively sun-like star not very far from the Sun that is home to an extrasolar planet, Distance 57.47 ly (17.62 pc) Spectral type G6. The planet has at least 3 times the mass of Jupiter

I hope that gives you a Readers Digesr-type introduction to what is a vast subject.

Answer 6

From our current technology, there really isn't even a way to go about observing whether or not other systems seemingly similiar to our own due to the distance at which it lies from us.

Answer 7

how can we do it and why