If NASA can supposedly build telescopes capable of detecting water and organic molecules on distant planets...

Question

beyond our Solar System within the next 25 years, then doesn't that mean other superior races have definitely detected us by now?

Answer 1

1: Detection of water and organic molecules does not equate to the detection of life.

2: You assume there are any superior races out there.

3: You assume they are close enought to detect us.

4: You assume they are even looking.

5: If they have detected us, so what? We have detected planets light years away, but we still can't get to them.

Answer 2

Yes, it's safe to assume that any technically superior civilization has actually mapped out the entire Universe. After all, if humans can approximate how big the Universe is, the number of galaxies there within, and speculate on the probability of intelligent life existing on a given number of planets, at this point in our early knowledge about space, then it's almost certain that any super advanced civilization that has preceded us by hundreds, thousands, or even, millions of years, knows our EXACT location and every detail about what makes up Earth.

Answer 3

Wow, the responses to this question are really wide in scope. My belief is, yes, obviously anything we have done is repeatable elsewhere by others if they are there. I'm very sure they are there if for no other reason than the immense number of stars alone in just our galaxy and their planets, said to number more than all the grains of sand on all the beaches on the planet. As I say quite frequently, given the nature of life, it will not be denied, and you could not stop it if you wanted to. For all the noise we make, you would at least hear us if you passes within 70 or 80 light years of us. And then you would see us very quickly if you came this way. I have a feeling their is a lot more going on out there than we can fathom yet and we are coming of age and looking around. Soon...

Answer 4

No.

Remember, when we look into the sky (whether visible light or radio waves), we are actually looking into the past. Looking at a planet 2300 light years away, we are seeing it as it was when, oh, Alexander the Great was roaming the Middle East.

So any other Extraterrestrial Intelligences have the same problem - let's say somebody is 500 light years away. They're just in time to see the discovery of the New World - not very exciting for a race that can comprehend interstellar distances. Or, if they are further away - say, 40000 light years - then we're just a bunch of neanderthals!

Answer 5

Yes, but not using telescopes. Perhaps other means of detection may be used to analyse molecules on a distant planet.
You see, even the sharpest telescope shows Pluto only as a pixel and nothing more. We may however be able to have a birds-eye view of these planets in near true color. Kinda like seeing our red planet Mars from a distance.

Scientists are planning to build observatory arrays which are essentially a series of small telescopes spread out at equal distances that may act as one giant vitual telescope.

Answer 6

We've only be sending radio waves out into space since the late 1800, and of course television much later. Even traveling at the speed of light it will take hundreds if not thousands of years for our signals to reach distant solar systems. If there is someone listening on the other end like we are listening here on Earth with SETI, would the signal even be strong enough to hear? And if they're so advanced maybe radio waves have become obsolete. Like telegraphs here on earth? (when is the last time you sent a telegraph?) Couldn't there be better ways to communicate that we just haven't figured out yet?

I don't know it we're alone or not. I'd like to think we're not alone. Who really knows if we're being watched. Remember, It's a long way from being watched to being visited. millions of light years.

Answer 7

the way a telescope works is basically same to a satellite tv for pc dish (that's clever considering the fact that the two are receiving easy, purely of notably distinctive wavelengths). The dish ingredient reflects easy from the article in question to a small receiver, that's the relatively digicam ingredient, that's suspended over the dish ingredient. For a visual easy spectrum dish (aka telescope), the dish floor could desire to be a reflect floor. increasing the accuracy of a telescope demands that the reflective dish floor be extra and extra great. This, at a ingredient, will become a controversy as a results of fact there could be almost no flaws on the reflect floor in any respect or the outcomes would be a frequently unintelligible image. as a results of fact the reflect floor could desire to boost, keeping a faultless reflect floor will become impossible. as a results of fact the gadgets being suggested are as much as now, even the slightest imperfection could have extensive outcomes on the outcomes. the respond: we purely do no longer yet have the technologies to create them as a results of fact of their sensitivity to imperfections. edit: for all of the trash talk feedback- heavily adult men? human beings ask questions as a results of fact they like to correctly known the solutions to them. of course this person is familiar with that nasa/IAU hasn't geared up telescopes able to this, yet they do no longer comprehend why. they're asking appropriate to the mechanisms of even though is scuffling with nasa from construction one in each and every of those contraption. in case you do not have the respond or are not going to answer, do purely no longer respond. Your no longer assisting all and sundry via posting insulting and sarcastic feedback.

Answer 8

Water and organic molecules are not necessarily sign of life. For example the methane gas is considered organic molecule and is quite abundant on the outer moons but there is no way of knowing if life exists before we go there and check.

Answer 9

We have not found any planets yet that are the size of the earth and we only detect the elements by using a spectroscope. We don't view the planets directly.

Answer 10

what makes you so sure that other civilization on other planets are so much more advanced than us?
What makes you so sure other civilizations on other planets are even interested in us? That presumes they have very similar perception and thinking processes. If you are not just extrapolating from your own thoughts and wishes it would be interesting to hear your reasons for asking this question.