Search for Advanced Civilizations Finds Nothing Obvious in 100,000 Galax

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According to these guys, a search of over one hundred thousand galaxies has turned up no signs of advanced civilizations beyond earth. I would have skipped all that mid-infrared wavelength stuff and looked for things like signs of a McDonalds or Walmart. Advanced civilizations would definitely have those.

After searching 100,000 galaxies for signs of highly advanced extraterrestrial life, a team of scientists using observations from NASA's WISE orbiting observatory has found no evidence of advanced civilizations in them.
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So... When it comes to being invaded... We've got some time.
 
I'm quite confident our ability to search 100,00 galaxies deeply for signs of civilizations is quite good. Billions of planets, not a problem. Look at the way we found that plane in the pacific.
 
Or we can be the equivalent of a flea in a skyscraper exploring a tiny amount with a person's giant foot next to us but have no concept of what it is.

"Advanced" is quite a subjective opinion.
 
0.0000000000001% of galaxies can be checked off list just a few more to go lol.
 
MrMitch said:
I'm quite confident our ability to search 100,00 galaxies deeply for signs of civilizations is quite good. Billions of planets, not a problem. Look at the way we found that plane in the pacific.
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We have a winner!
 
They're trying to read the existence of advanced civilization based on the assumption of an entire galaxy being populated and used for resources. No wonder they didn't find anything significant :rolleyes:.
 
TechLarry said:
We think we do. I'm not convinced we're all that smart cosmically.
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Pretty much this. We barely know how to identify planets around a few thousand stars. The study in question essentially amounts to "we stood right here, looked through a straw and didn't see anything".

Time would be better spent concentrating the search on our own galaxy I would think, at least for now.
 
The problem with looking for others in the universe is that what we are seeing is the past. The further away something is from us, the older it is due to the time light takes to reach us. So something that is millions of light years away has already happened millions of years ago. Millions of years ago, there wasn't anything there, but there might be now. Taking Earth as an example, unless an alien is 100 light years away, they won't know we are here because 100 years ago we weren't smart enough to transmit much out to space. But in this very moment in time there could be vast civilizations out there, we just can't see them in the now and then.
 
somecallmeTim said:
I'm wondering do we know what we're looking for in the first place?
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That is probably a big variable ... right now we are looking for a civilization much like ourselves (since it is hard for us to envision things to look for that we haven't yet discovered or thought of ... the unknown unknowns) ... we haven't even been communicating in a detectable way for hundred years yet (a drop in the bucket of cosmic time), but what if we discover some super duper new communication technology in another 100 years that is nothing like our current technologies and wouldn't have been detectable

our current technology level is very unstable ... we have access to quite a few technologies that could end our ability to communicate beyond our own solar system (nuclear, biological, chemical, etc) ... we could wipe ourselves out tomorrow (and maybe other civilizations do the same) ... it is very tough to be looking at the brief time they are communicating if they live fast and die young ... it is just as tough to be looking in the right way if they are a civilization that is thousands or millions of years more advanced than us
 
MrMitch said:
I'm quite confident our ability to search 100,00 galaxies deeply for signs of civilizations is quite good. Billions of planets, not a problem. Look at the way we found that plane in the pacific.
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Yeah, and the worst part is, people are going to read title, and now are experts on their not being life in the universe.
 
clearly it is not prudent to emit coherent RF signals or excess mid-infrared

predator prey relationships scale infinitely
 
The whole thing is an interesting study but still it seems to assume to much to be all that useful. It seems to be more of a shot in the dark, but way better than nothing.

They basically scanned these galaxies and were looking for indications that large amount of their stars were emitting much more in the near-infrared spectrum than they should be.

They used this filtering metric based on an idea from the 60s that an advanced civilization would have such great energy requirements that they would have to begin directly harvesting energy from stars with some kind of mega structure (Dyson Balls). Now it's further assumed that these structures would have to be made from heavy elements not normally found in the stars, and so as the radiation from the star was harvested for energy and the waste radiation re-emitted, its wavelength would be to the near-infrared because of the physics between the heavy elements and the photons.

And so they were basically looking for a galactic race of super people that had basically colonized the entire galaxy or a large section of it, in that they had enough of these "Dyson Spheres" (as these star-harvesting structures are known) in operation to alter the light from the galaxy appreciably enough that they would detect it based on their near-infrared metric.

So that's a lot of assumptions born from a fiction idea in the 60s. We assume that they need huge amounts of energy, and that harvesting the energy output from a natural fusion reactor would be the best way to fulfill those needs, and we further assume that the atomic composition of said engineering marvel would have to be primarily made up of heavy elements.
 
We're not gonna find any intelligent life until we discover Protean relics on Mars that lead us to a Mass Relay.
 
Leonardo Leonardo said:
The whole thing is an interesting study but still it seems to assume to much to be all that useful. It seems to be more of a shot in the dark, but way better than nothing.

They basically scanned these galaxies and were looking for indications that large amount of their stars were emitting much more in the near-infrared spectrum than they should be.

They used this filtering metric based on an idea from the 60s that an advanced civilization would have such great energy requirements that they would have to begin directly harvesting energy from stars with some kind of mega structure (Dyson Balls). Now it's further assumed that these structures would have to be made from heavy elements not normally found in the stars, and so as the radiation from the star was harvested for energy and the waste radiation re-emitted, its wavelength would be to the near-infrared because of the physics between the heavy elements and the photons.

And so they were basically looking for a galactic race of super people that had basically colonized the entire galaxy or a large section of it, in that they had enough of these "Dyson Spheres" (as these star-harvesting structures are known) in operation to alter the light from the galaxy appreciably enough that they would detect it based on their near-infrared metric.

So that's a lot of assumptions born from a fiction idea in the 60s. We assume that they need huge amounts of energy, and that harvesting the energy output from a natural fusion reactor would be the best way to fulfill those needs, and we further assume that the atomic composition of said engineering marvel would have to be primarily made up of heavy elements.
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I came to pretty similar conclusions reading that..They were "Extremely" optimistic if that was the criteria they were looking for.
 
Humans are horribly adapted for survival anywhere on earth from a purely physical sense. Humans rely on technology to a degree no other species on earth does, ever has, and probably ever will. Compared to every other form of life on this planet humans are a statistical anomaly, and human civilization an even more bizarre anomaly. The failure here is the assumption by researchers that every intelligent species will develop technology in the same way humans have and be just as noisy with it. Why should they?

Beyond that, a race that's capable of traveling between stars would have need of a communication system that also works faster than light by some means not currently understood. If such a system existed that used principles like quantum entanglement then there would be no transmissions to receive. Such a race would only be "heard" if they deliberately used methods humans are capable of detecting, and close enough to the earth to be picked up.

A more probable way of detecting such a race would be from anomalous signal bursts coming from some kind of propulsion or power generation system since massive amounts of energy would be involved. There would be mathematical similarities between them and the bursts would be repeated every time such a propulsion system was used, or it would be a continuous signal if it was from power generation. There have been some fast radio bursts with these kinds of properties, and scientists are trying to determine how far away they are and looking for natural explanations before jumping to any far-out conclusions, but if I were looking for an "advanced" civilization I'd be looking for something more along these lines. You'd want to find their biggest and noisiest (radiation-wise) technology. After all, it's a lot easier to spot a hydrogen bomb blast across space than to tune into the State of the Union speech.
 
bigdogchris said:
When searching 100,000 galaxies exactly how thorough can you be?
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It's comparable to looking at a haystack with just the naked eye from 10 yards away and claiming "there is no sign of any needles"
 
Phoenix333 said:
After all, it's a lot easier to spot a hydrogen bomb blast across space than to tune into the State of the Union speech.
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Bad chicken! You're going to upset the locals by implying an alien race would determine humans are intelligent by listening to a State of the Union address.
 
There are a couple things no one seems to acknowledge here:

1. The vast distances we are talking about, they are literally beyond your comprehension, even at the speed of light these objects are thousands to millions of years away. What this means: Any information we discover that points to an 'advanced' civilization would have to be produced a long, long, long time ago.

2. The effects that vast distance has on development of species. This assumes our current understanding of the universe is generally correct, thus it is impossible to travel the speed of light (and likely faster) meaning those distances just got exponentially longer. Couple that with the need to communicate over said distances easily if one is going to maintain a culture across a civilization.

3. COMPETITION, it dictates all life on this planet, and there is literally no reason to beleive it will not be the same on any other world. Resources are scares, life requires them to survive, competition is what forces life to adapt or die, which is what drives life to do things. Literally if there was no competition over resources, we would still be primordial goo (because there would be no need to do anything else, and without that need, life is lazy).

3b. Yes this is based on our collective experience, not just as a species but as a planet and every species living and dead on it. There is literally no reason to believe it would be any different else where, all observations indicate that survival is the exception across the universe, extinction is the rule.
 
all observations indicate that survival is the exception across the universe, extinction is the rule.
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Incorrect. Life observed on just one planet is statistically insignificant. More accurately, the rule is no life, but we simply don't have enough direct observation to really make rules.
 
hellokeith said:
Incorrect. Life observed on just one planet is statistically insignificant. More accurately, the rule is no life, but we simply don't have enough direct observation to really make rules.
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I think you are helping his argument rather than your own. We have only been able to find sufficient life on the Earth and nowhere else. So currently, life is the exception rather than the rule. Also the vastness of space is predominately filled with hazards that prevent life. All the variables that must come together to allow life as we know it, are pretty rare.

Also the notion that there wouldn't be signs of life because of the distance of the galaxies is not the most valid argument. Our galaxy is a young galaxy, there were many other galaxies before it. That argument is also supposing that other planets and lifeforms would have followed the same evolutionary path that we did. But in reality other galaxies and planets could have formed faster, or jumped evolutionary stages. Distance and time are factors that need to be taken into account, but hardly the most pressing.

Personally I don't think we will ever find life out in the universe, at least not in the present few generations. I personally have no idea if there is life out there or not, I tend to think there isn't, at least not intelligent life as we may expect. Dreams of interacting with alien species like in the Sci-Fi movies and shows is pretty unrealistic. That vastness of space is filled with death for life as we know it. There are so many variables that could kill people on any journey through space that it makes it almost impossible to spot, much less travel to or communicate with alien life forms.

All that being said, reports like these always fuel some kind of ridiculous statements from both sides of the "life" debate. Each of these studies is just another experiment and process trying to find information. The lack of information is only telling within the bounds of this particular study.
 
So you could do the math, presume an "advanced" civilization wouldn't need massive radio tower beacons, and any radio towers they have would be similar to ours if they are our tech levels. So take 1-MW radio transmitter (that's a big honking FM radio source too) and apply the inverse square law to it over a distance of many millions of light years, and find that power at that distance is so small it couldn't move a single electron.
 
The problem with finding intelligent life is to assume that they too will be on an equal technological path as your or as has advanced beyond it. Furthermore, the assumption is, is that the signals you are putting out or the ones they are putting out will have reached you from the place you think they came from, so you when you put your signal back to them, you are assuming they too will be in that same spot to receive it. Not so and vice versa. Receiving any message was a crap shoot at best. Sending one back means that nothing will be there when it gets there. That ship moved on.
 
NoOther said:
Personally I don't think we will ever find life out in the universe, at least not in the present few generations. I personally have no idea if there is life out there or not, I tend to think there isn't, at least not intelligent life as we may expect. Dreams of interacting with alien species like in the Sci-Fi movies and shows is pretty unrealistic. That vastness of space is filled with death for life as we know it. There are so many variables that could kill people on any journey through space that it makes it almost impossible to spot, much less travel to or communicate with alien life forms.
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That is a rather unreasonable statement don't you think? We can count trillions of galaxies that we can see with an uncountable number of stars and a likewise uncountable number of planets orbiting those stars. To think we are the most advanced species in all of that is monumentally arrogant, the numbers just don't support that. Now as to if we will ever find/contact, that is a far more reasonable statement. I would like to think we would and I would like to hope we do so in my generation. However I am reasonable enough to know that our technology is far too limited currently to expect it.

Staples said:
Obviously this is proof of GOD.
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K7G.gif
 
Phoenix333 said:
Humans are horribly adapted for survival anywhere on earth from a purely physical sense.
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Humans rely on technology to a degree no other species on earth does, ever has, and probably ever will.
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We're actually the best long-distance runners and we're extremely adaptable foragers. How likely is it that two technological species would arise at exactly the same time? Or that a second would happen to arise while the first is just learning genetics?

Tools are far better than biological adaptations for the same purpose. They require less body mass and energy, you don't have to carry them constantly, your body doesn't have to be perfectly adapted to a specific environment, etc. Better tools are more useful than primitive ones, driving the evolution of intelligence. Tool use is relatively rare but is seen across various species (including a few birds). That implies to me that technological development and civilization could be essentially inevitable under Earth-like conditions, our species just happened to be the first to get there. We can't say either way until we have some actual data about life beyond earth, if it exists.

The failure here is the assumption by researchers that every intelligent species will develop technology in the same way humans have and be just as noisy with it. Why should they?
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...if I were looking for an "advanced" civilization I'd be looking for something more along these lines. You'd want to find their biggest and noisiest (radiation-wise) technology. After all, it's a lot easier to spot a hydrogen bomb blast across space than to tune into the State of the Union speech.
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They're not talking about radio here, they're using near-infrared to do sort of what you're talking about. From the article:
The idea behind our research is that, if an entire galaxy had been colonized by an advanced spacefaring civilization, the energy produced by that civilization's technologies would be detectable in mid-infrared wavelengths -- exactly the radiation that the WISE satellite was designed to detect for other astronomical purposes.
...

"Whether an advanced spacefaring civilization uses the large amounts of energy from its galaxy's stars to power computers, space flight, communication, or something we can't yet imagine, fundamental thermodynamics tells us that this energy must be radiated away as heat in the mid-infrared wavelengths," Wright said. "This same basic physics causes your computer to radiate heat while it is turned on."
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