Why isn't intelligent life responding to our radio and TV or atomic broadcasts?

Question

Humans have been releasing EMI radiation into space for 106 years. That's over 623 trillion miles traveled. A light-year is equal to about 5,878,625,373,183.61 statute miles. The first radio broadcast was Dec.23 1900 by Reginald Fessenden. Over 500 stars are within this range.
http://solstation.com/stars3/100-gs.htm

Answer 1

There are a few reasons. First of all, don't forget that the response signals would need time to travel back here. So we need to halve the distance in question; only stars within 53 light years would have been able to receive and respond to our signals. Secondly, our piddly little terrestrial signals aren't likely to be clearly received at such distances; only the deliberately strong and directed signals sent out by groups like SETI, which are fewer and more recent, are likely to ever glean a response. And thirdly, there are many estimates (via the Drake equation) that suggest there are at most a few intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way, and it's not at all unreasonable to suppose that none of them are within the specified radius.

Answer 2

Have you *seen* what's on TV? If I were an alien and saw that junk coming in, I wouldn't respond either! ;-)

We didn't start widespread broadasting for another 20 years after your start date -- early once in a while radio had a weak signal, and may have been too directional.
But even so, there are somewhere between 100 and 200 billion stars in our own galaxy -- a paltry 500 of them isn't a very large sample. In our own solar system, only one of 8 planets (plus a few dwarf planets) has intelligent life...the odds of any ONE planet having intelligent life that could hear and respond to our signals is incredibly low. However, the odds of *some* planet in our galaxy being able to do so are encouraging!

Let's say the closest planet to us that has such intelligent life is 45 light years away -- if they got one of our broadcasts and responded immediately, and we hear from them next week, it means they heard a broadcast from 1917 (during WWI). Get the idea? The odds of us hearing from anybody else anytime soon aren't good :)

Answer 3

The most likely answer is that we haven't reached any intelligent life yet - and remember - you have to half your numbers to get a true picture because we have to allow the time necessary to receive a signal back.

The universe is so large that even 360 degree radio signals for over 100 years haven't even begun to give us a statistically valid sample of what may lie out there.

The best analogy I've ever seen concerning the distances involved:

If we scale our sun down to the size of a period on a type written sheet, the nearest star to us would be 8 miles away!

Answer 4

So, our very first broadcasts have reached 500 stars.

But substantial broadcasting only began about 1922, and the volume varies with the CUBE of the radius, so that's only 250 stars who might have responded.

And if they did, only 30 of them are close enough for their response to have arrived by now; the rest are still on their way.

1 in 30 is much much higher than most reasoned estimates of the frequency of extraterrestrial civilizations.

Answer 5

those declares do holiday into area. They pass outward from Earth at on the subject of the cost of light. So in case you're taking the year 1900 as whilst the 1st vulnerable man made radio alerts have been generated, then Earth is interior the direction of a sphere greater or less 200 easy years in diameter.

Answer 6

1) We have to assume there is life out there
2) if there is - then we have to assume they are intelligent
3) if they are - then they still have to be intelligent enough (advance enough) to receive the signal and be able to know that our signal is not random
4) after all that - then they have to be intelligent enough to send back the signal

so, the chances of ALL the above points to be satisfied is very very small.

Then, after all that.... would ANY intelligence life WANT to contact us?

Answer 7

1) Maybe there is no one out there
2) Maybe there is no one within 106 light years
3) Maybe they have responded, but the response hasn't reached us yet
4) Maybe they have responded, but we havent detected or understood the response.

Who knows.

Answer 8

Good question. But with all of the wars, terrorism, abuses, crime, etc... going on on our planet, whty would any intelligent life forms out there WANT to contact us?

Answer 9

Heres a good example-You have a family that lives a few miles from you ,that you know are murderous and will probably kill you if you get near them,if they called... would you answer the phone?

Answer 10

Maybe because our broadcasts contain no signs of intelligence.