Are Advanced Alien Civilizations Living In Globular Star Clusters?

Space.com: Advanced Alien Civilizations Could Live in Globular Star Clusters

KISSIMMEE, Fla. — Densely packed groups of stars may make excellent cradles for complex space-traveling life to evolve. Despite studies that claim these environments, known as globular clusters, may be too harsh for life, a new study argues for a more optimistic view based on the evolving understanding of where planets lie outside the solar system.

"A globular cluster might be the first place in which intelligent life is identified in our galaxy," lead study author Rosanne Di Stefano, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a statement. Di Stefano presented the new research today (Jan. 6) here at the 227th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.Globular clusters are massive groupings of millions of stars in a region only 100 light-years across. The clusters date back to the early life of the Milky Way — nearly 10 billion years ago. (For comparison, the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old.) Although these clusters' age raises some questions, it also provides ample time for civilizations that emerged to evolve and become complex.

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More News On The Investigation Of Alien Life Living In Globular Star Clusters

Dense Star Fields Might Be Home To Extraterrestrial Life -- National Geographic
Star Clusters Could Be Best Place to Look for Intelligent Alien Life: Study -- AP
In search for alien life, focus on globular star clusters -- CBS
Star clumps harbour 'sweet spot' in search for alien life -- BBC
Old stars may have some new tricks – possibly even life -- CSM
Do Extraterrestrials Exist? Alien Life Could Thrive In Globular Star Clusters -- tech Times
Alien Life May Be Hiding in These Brilliant Star Clusters -- Gizmodo

What Happens After Intelligent Life is Found?

Tom Chmielewski, The Atlantic: After Intelligent Life Is Discovered

Here’s what happens if astronomers make contact with a civilization on another planet.

The false alarm happened in 1997.

The Green Bank Radio Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia, was picking up some unusual signals—and Seth Shostak, then the head of the Center for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Research in Mountain View, Caifornia, was convinced that they had come from intelligent life somewhere in the universe.

“It looked like it might be the real deal,” Shostak recalled. Within a few hours, he had a call from The New York Times.

But within a day, it became clear that the source of excitement was actually a European satellite. To make matters worse, a second telescope in Georgia, which would have told the scientists about the true nature of the signal, wasn’t working.

Yet Shostak says that false alarm proved to be a valuable dry run for the astronomers, giving them a small taste of what would happen if the signal turned out to be real. In 1989, the International Academy of Astronautics adopted its SETI Post-Detection Protocols, a set of guidelines for how to proceed once intelligent life is discovered among the stars. SETI researchers hope that one day soon, they’ll have a chance to use them.

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CSN Editor: If first contact is made .... it is a guarantee that the whole world will be paying attention.

First Contact: Will We Ever Hear From Aliens?

The Allen Telescope Array in California. Photograph: Ho New/ Reuters

From The Guardian:

It will soon be half a century since the American astronomer Frank Drake first pointed a radio telescope at the star Tau Ceti in the hope of picking up an extraterrestrial broadcast, and we still haven't heard anything. So is there anyone out there?

Fifty years ago Frank Drake – then a young astronomer from Cornell University – began an experiment that would have profound implications for humanity's understanding of its place in the cosmos. He turned the newly constructed Green Bank radio telescope in West Virginia towards Tau Ceti, a nearby star that is similar to our own Sun.

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Satellite TV 'Making Humans Invisible To Aliens On Other Planets'

The digital age is effectively gagging the Earth by cutting the transmission of TV and radio signals into space Photo: REX

From The Telegraph:

Satellite television and the digital revolution is making humanity more and more invisible to inquisitive aliens on other planets, the world's leading ET hunter has said.

That might be good news for anyone who fears an ''Independence Day'' – style invasion by little green men. But it is also likely to make the search for extraterrestrial intelligence by Earthly scientists harder, Dr Frank Drake believes.

Dr Drake, who founded the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) organisation in the US 50 years ago, said the digital age was effectively gagging the Earth by cutting the transmission of TV and radio signals into space.

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Looking For Life As We Know It

The Australia Telescope array near Narrabri, New South Wales, with Mercury, Venus, and the Moon all is the same stretch of sky. It's the 50th anniversary of attempts to search for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. Credit: Graeme L. White and Glen Cozens/James Cook University

From Cosmos:

Some scientists are convinced life is common in the universe, but intelligence rare. As for how long civilisations last - and stay detectable - few are willing to hazard a guess.

Two young physicists at Cornell University in upstate New York, Philip Morrison and Giuseppe Cocconi, had long been interested in gamma rays. One spring day in 1959, Cocconi posed an intriguing question: wouldn’t gamma rays be perfect for communication between the stars?

The discussion that followed led to a two-page article in the British journal Nature entitled “Searching for interstellar communications”. Sandwiched between a paper on the electronic prediction of swarming in bees and one on metabolic changes induced in red blood cells by X-rays, the duo argued that if advanced extraterrestrial civilisations existed, and wanted to communicate, they would likely use radio.

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Search For ET Just Got Easier: Effective Way To Search Atmospheres Of Planets For Signs Of Life

An artist's concept of the sunlight glowing through the Earth's thin atmosphere and reaching an observer on the Moon during a lunar eclipse. (Credit: Gabriel Perez Diaz, SMM, Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC))

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (June 12, 2009) — Astronomers using the Science and Technology Facilities Council's (STFC) William Herschel Telescope (WHT) on La Palma have confirmed an effective way to search the atmospheres of planets for signs of life, vastly improving our chances of finding alien life outside our solar system.

The team from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) used the WHT and the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) to gather information about the chemical composition of the Earth's atmosphere from sunlight that has passed through it. The research is published June11 in Nature.

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