<h2>Alien Starships</h2>
To detect alien civilizations, astronomers need to make some assumptions about the forms they might take — and the traces their technological artifacts could leave behind.
An <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.09985">outrageous new paper</a> by a mathematician at Kansas State University does just that, positing that a sufficiently advanced alien civilization would likely build starships powered by the radiation thrown off by small black holes — and speculating that astronomers could use gamma telescopes to spot evidence of these black hole starships.
<h2>Black Holes</h2>
The basic idea, according to mathematician Louis Crane, is that a spaceship powered by a black hole would leave distinctive spillover from gamma rays. He suggests astronomers could detect that spillover using a telescope like the orbital Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.
&#8220;If some advanced civilization already had such starships, current [very high energy] gamma ray telescopes could detect it out to 100 to 1,000 light years if we were in its beam,&#8221; Crane said in a <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-03-gamma-ray-telescopes-starships-powered.html">press release</a>. &#8220;They could be distinguished from natural sources by their steadily changing redshift over a period of years to decades.&#8221;
<h2>Game SETI Match</h2>
Crane also said, provocatively, that he believes astronomers may have already spotted several gamma ray sources &#8220;for which no natural explanation has been given.&#8221;
He also speculated about what it would mean for a civilization to be capable of creating an artificial black hole — and it sounds absolutely epic.
&#8220;To produce an artificial black hole, we would need to focus a billion-ton gamma ray laser to nuclear dimensions,&#8221; Crane said in the press release. &#8220;It&#8217;s like making as many high-tech nuclear bombs as there are automobiles on Earth. Just the scale of it is beyond the current world economy. A civilization which fully utilized the solar system would have the resources.&#8221;
<div>
READ MORE: <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-03-gamma-ray-telescopes-starships-powered.html">Gamma ray telescopes could detect starships powered by black hole</a> [Phys.org]
</div>
<div>
More on black holes as power sources: <a href="https://futurism.com/stephen-hawking-suggests-black-holes-power-future">Stephen Hawking Suggests That Black Holes Could Power Our Future</a>
</div>

"To produce an artificial black hole, we would need to focus a billion-ton gamma ray laser to nuclear dimensions."

New SETI plan: Detect alien starships powered by black holes

Nuclear Dimensions

A new paper suggests that we could spot an alien civilization by looking for signs of starships powered by the radiation thrown off by small black holes.

New SETI Plan: Detect Alien Starships Powered by Black Holes

Hold onto your hats: This researcher thinks we might have already spotted signs of an alien civilization.

<h2>To Serve Man</h2>
For decades, scientists have used radio telescopes to listen for cosmic signals that could originate with an extraterrestrial civilization. Increasingly, they&#8217;re also broadcasting messages to the stars in hopes that someone is listening.
But in a <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/don-t-invite-aliens-to-lunch-warns-astronomer-martin-dominik-ps528v73w">new interview</a> with The Times, University of St. Andrews astronomer Martin Dominik cautioned against sending messages into the unknown of deep space.
&#8220;Maybe,&#8221; he told the paper, provocatively, &#8220;they will come and eat us.&#8221;
<h2>We Come in Peace</h2>
The Arecibo Observatory beamed out a message to potential aliens <a href="https://www.geekwire.com/2018/44-years-first-message-aliens-arecibo-observatory-calls-follow/">in 1974</a>. Next year, scientists intend to <a href="https://www.geekwire.com/2018/get-message-extraterrestrials-answers-evolving/">send a signal</a> to the stars representing the period table of elements. In 2008, the maker of Doritos chips <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/messaging-aliens-seti-meti">shot a 30-second advertisement</a> to a system in the Ursa Major constellation. And we&#8217;re constantly beaming radio waves of old music and sitcoms in every direction.
&#8220;Anyone can just beam messages into outer space, and nobody has any right to stop them from doing it,&#8221; Dominik told The Times. &#8220;Some people feel uncomfortable about it. For the first time astronomers are facing an ethical question. Should we send messages out to others? Is this dangerous? Should we keep a lower profile? What is the better strategy?&#8221;
<h2>Last Thing</h2>
Dominik&#8217;s comments allude to the terrifying &#8220;<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/12/what-happens-if-china-makes-first-contact/544131/">dark-forest theory</a>,&#8221; which holds that astronomers haven&#8217;t spotted extraterrestrial signals because other civilizations are hiding from killer aliens that wipe out any galactic competition they spot.
&#8220;Some say [alien contact] is the greatest thing we should do,&#8221; Dominik told The Times. &#8220;Some think we should be very quiet and this should be the last thing we should do — and it might indeed be the last thing we will do.&#8221;
<div>
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/don-t-invite-aliens-to-lunch-warns-astronomer-martin-dominik-ps528v73w">Don’t invite aliens to lunch, warns astronomer Martin Dominik</a> [The Times]
</div>
<div>
More on aliens: <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-scientist-aliens-visited-earth-nuance">Yes, a NASA Scientist Said Aliens May Have Visited Earth. But There’s Some Nuance</a>
</div>

"For the first time astronomers are facing an ethical question."

Astronomer warns against SETI: “Maybe they will come and eat us.”

Off World

In a new interview with The Times, University of St. Andrews astronomer Martin Dominik cautioned against sending messages into the unknown of deep space.

Astronomer Warns Against SETI: “Maybe They Will Come and Eat Us.”

Is it risky for Earth to send signals to extraterrestrials?

<h2>Black Money</h2>
It&#8217;s been just over a year since the U.S. Defense Department <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html">officially declassified</a> two videos that showed an encounter between two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets and an unidentified flying object (UFO).
Now, former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) — a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/12/16/16785122/ufos-harry-reid-pentagon-defense-blink-182">longtime proponent</a> of UFO research — is calling on Congress to review reports like the Navy encounter, which the Defense Department has collected for years as part of a program dubbed &#8220;Black Money.&#8221;
&#8220;I personally don&#8217;t know if there exist little green men,&#8221; Reid <a href="https://knpr.org/knpr/2019-01/harry-reid-renewed-ready-rumble">told KNPR</a>. &#8220;I kind of doubt that, but I do believe the information we have indicates we should do a lot more study.&#8221;
<h2>Alien Stigma</h2>
The interview took place, Reid said, just before a scheduled call with a Senator to discuss ways for Congress to listen to the Black Money reports.
But also to take them seriously. &#8220;What we found in the past is that these pilots, when they see something strange like this, they’re prone not to report it for fear that the bosses will think something’s wrong with them, and they don’t get the promotion,” Reid told KNPR. “So, many, many times they don’t say a word to anybody about these strange things.&#8221;
After all, one of the biggest reasons these sightings never actually surfaced or reported by service members is the <a href="https://futurism.com/ufo-stigma">stigma surrounding the subject of aliens</a> and UFOs.
Reid may have retired back in 2017, but he still has powerful connections inside Congress. Service members deserve, he believes, to have their voices heard.
&#8220;Frankly, I think the federal government has done almost nothing to help us with this,&#8221; Reid said.
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/news/hoh/harry-reid-lobbying-ufo-research-reporting">Harry Reid pushing for more UFO research</a> [Roll Call] 

More on UFOs: <a href="https://futurism.com/ufo-stigma">You’re Not Crazy if You Believe in UFOs. Let’s Discuss in Scientific Terms.</a>

The Defense Department funded UFO investigations from 2007 to 2012.

Former Senator wants Congress to listen to UFO reports

Alien Legitimacy

In a public radio interview, former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called on Congress to spend more time listening to reports of unidentified aircraft.

Former Senator Wants Congress to Listen to UFO Reports

“We have hundreds and hundreds of people that have seen the same thing.”

<h2>Time to Outsource</h2>
If we ever want to find habitable planets far away from Earth, spot whatever extraterrestrial life <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-scientist-aliens-visited-earth-nuance">be out there</a>, or fly crewed missions out into deeper space, we&#8217;re going to have to invest heavily in space-based manufacturing operations.
That&#8217;s especially when it comes to peering into space that&#8217;s farther away from Earth. That reason is that we&#8217;re reaching the point where the telescopes that are big enough to improve upon current models are also too big to build on Earth then fly into space. That&#8217;s the crux of the argument of a <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/finding-alien-life-may-require-giant-telescopes-built-in-orbit/">new feature</a> in Scientific American, which listed the in-space assembly and modifications to the Hubble Telescope and International Space Station as examples of how in-space assembly could push forward our understanding of the cosmos.
<h2>Size Matters</h2>
It&#8217;s simple physics: a high-definition image of deep space requires a telescope to have a big lens. Sure, it would be simpler to manufacture these complex apparatuses on Earth, but doing so would require the use of heavier and riskier rockets.
Meanwhile, smaller rocket launches — which could carry all of the parts, but with some assembly required — seem to grow cheaper and <a href="https://futurism.com/falcon-9-spacex-nasa-category-3">more commonplace by the day</a>.
<h2>Crossing new Bridges</h2>
In-space assembly matters for other reasons, too. Recent progress in the realm of <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-successfully-3d-prints-space-microgravity">microgravity-environment 3D printing</a> and similar endeavors will be necessary if we ever want people to actually explore deep space.
&#8220;Imagine a world where once your car runs low on fuel, instead of driving to the gas station you take it to the junkyard and abandon in,&#8221; DARPA program manager Joe Parrish told Scientific American. His message is clear — if we don&#8217;t find new ways to become <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/space-agencies-treat-astronaut-injuries-3d-printing">self-sustaining on our journey into space</a>, we will never get very far.
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/finding-alien-life-may-require-giant-telescopes-built-in-orbit/">Finding Alien Life May Require Giant Telescopes Built in Orbit</a> [Scientific American]
More on orbital telescopes: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/telescope-upgrade-map-entire-universe">Telescope Upgrade Will Create the Most Detailed Map of the Universe Ever</a>

IKEA instructions are nothing next to this.

The search for aliens may depend on in-space assembly

Instruction Manual

Building telescopes and other things in space, rather than on Earth, would vastly improve our ability to watch and explore the cosmos.

The Search for Aliens May Depend on In-Space Assembly

Building everything on Earth will vastly limit how much we can explore.

This morning a white paper by NASA researcher Silvano Colombano, titled &#8220;<a href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20180001925.pdf">New Assumptions to Guide SETI Research</a>,&#8221; bubbled up on Reddit.
It made some bold claims, and the media immediately jumped on them. Fox News ran with the headline &#8220;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/science/nasa-scientist-says-earth-may-have-been-visited-by-aliens">NASA scientist says Earth may have been visited by aliens</a>.&#8221; Yahoo wrote that &#8220;<a href="https://in.news.yahoo.com/nasa-expert-says-tiny-aliens-may-already-visited-earth-didnt-notice-112843778.html">tiny aliens may have already visited Earth</a>.&#8221;
Yes, Colombano — who works for the space agency’s <a href="https://ti.arc.nasa.gov/">Intelligent Systems Division</a> — conceded that aliens might have already visited Earth. But in essence, the paper was a whip-smart new analysis of the Fermi Paradox. In other words, it confronted the question: <a href="https://futurism.com/theories-intelligent-life-fermi-paradox">Where are all the aliens</a>?
Speaking in terms of galactic real estate, there are many possible locations aliens could be hiding out – the universe is gargantuan. In total, the <a href="https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/counts_detail.html">Kepler Program</a> has discovered 3,848 planets – including some candidates that exist in systems around 11.2 billion years old. Our home solar system is only about 4.5 billion years old — which means it&#8217;s possible that, in one of these super-ancient systems, there&#8217;s an Earth-like planet 6 billion years older than our home planet.
Imagine what life on that planet might be like. The timing — those six billion years — are what&#8217;s important to Colombano. Basically, he reasons, technology on Earth is evolving at such an unprecedented rate that we can&#8217;t even begin to predict the sort of evolution we&#8217;ll see in the next thousand years – let alone 6 million.
Colombano&#8217;s conclusion: there are four main assumptions we should be challenging that help dictate the idea of where aliens could be, and how ever-advancing technology could play a part in their discovery. Here&#8217;s a rundown.
<h2>1. Interstellar travel is impossible or highly unlikely.</h2>
When it comes to how far we can travel in the universe, we&#8217;re currently limited by our technology and understanding of physics. The farthest a human has ever been from Earth is the far side of the Moon back in the 1970s. And we don&#8217;t have faster-than-light travel or a <a href="https://futurism.com/images/these-theoretical-propulsion-systems-might-make-interstellar-travel-a-reality">fusion drive</a>. Yet.
But aliens might. So we can look for evidence of somewhat obvious things, like a giant spaceship with ion thrusters passing by Earth.
Colombano argues though that we can&#8217;t let our current resources, or our imaginations, limit us — we have to fathom the possibilities of achieving a much greater understanding and control of matter-energy and space-time.
<h2>2. Radio waves continue to be the major form of communication for thousands or millions of years.</h2>
Until we can travel at light speeds, it&#8217;s good to have a way to communicate from a distance. That&#8217;s one of the reasonswhy SETI has been <a href="https://www.seti.org/seti-institute/project/details/seti-observations">searching for radio waves</a>.
Colombano explains that, even if <a href="https://futurism.com/powerful-radio-signals-are-coming-from-a-galaxy-three-billion-light-years-away">radio waves</a> continue to pop up in the far future — and we assume that they&#8217;re being transmitted by aliens — they&#8217;d be able to carry loads more information than they can currently hold. Meaning they would be unrecognizable to us — we wouldn&#8217;t be able to distinguish a meaningful message from &#8220;noise.&#8221;  Even so this form of communication might become obsolete in the future. Civilizations might choose other beacons — ones that we can&#8217;t even comprehend yet.
<h2>3. Intelligent civilizations would be based on carbon life.</h2>
This is a big one. For so long, we&#8217;ve known that certain key building blocks allow for life as we know it — but it&#8217;s possible that the universe contains very different forms of life. Our carbon-based ecosystem, Colombano argues, might just be a tiny first step in a continuing evolution that could produce forms of intelligence far superior to ours which are no longer based on carbon.
It feels reasonable to assume that all life originated in situations similar to our own — but the likelihood that every organism follows these same rules is slim. In which case, our opportunities for finding life begin to expand beyond the Goldilock&#8217;s Zone. It&#8217;s hard to imagine what this type of life would look like, or act like, or how it would communicate. The petri dish of its home planet could have concocted something totally alien.
This could then impact all other assumptions on this list. Life that is not carbon based might have access to interstellar travel due to a lack of human limitations — such as a human lifespan or size.
<h2>4. We have not been, and are not being, visited.</h2>
The search for extraterrestrial life, Colombano argues, has largely ignored the potential relevance of UFO phenomena thanks to prevalent hoaxes and general disinterest due to skepticism. Instead of this stance, he believes the scientific community should seek to &#8220;find the signal in the noise.&#8221;
<blockquote>In the very large amount of &#8220;noise&#8221; in UFO reporting there may be &#8220;signals&#8221; however small, that indicate some phenomena that cannot be explained or denied. If we adopt a new set of assumptions about what forms of higher intelligence and technology we might find, some of those phenomena might fit specific hypotheses, and we could start some serious enquiry.</blockquote>
<h2>So what should we be doing differently?</h2>
For a more aggressive approach to future SETI explorations, Comombano proposes a few suggestions.
Physicists should engage in &#8220;speculative physics&#8221; — still grounded in evidence-based theories, but that stretch the limits of space-time and energy. At the same time, they should engage technologists in futuristic exploration of how technology might evolve — especially in relation to AI and ways that humans can combine with machines. They should further engage sociologists in speculation about what sorts of societies might come from these sorts of posited civilizations, and how they might communicate. They should also consider UFO phenomena worthy of study in the context of a system with very low signal to noise ratio, but nevertheless with the possibility of challenging some of our assumptions and pointing to new possibilities for communication and discovery.
And considering all that — that life in the cosmos might not take a familiar form — we&#8217;re faced with new questions. How might this change our assumptions and openness to communicate with other civilizations that aren&#8217;t the Earth-like ones we&#8217;ve been imagining for ages? That&#8217;s the next hurdle.
For now, we&#8217;re still a ways away from confirming that aliens have touched down on our pale blue dot.

Yes, a NASA scientist said aliens may have visited Earth. But there's some nuance

Hard Science

This morning a white paper by NASA researcher Silvano Colombano, titled "New Assumptions to Guide SETI Research," bubbled up on Reddit.

Yes, a NASA Scientist Said Aliens May Have Visited Earth. But There’s Some Nuance

We have to challenge all previous assumptions if we want to find aliens. 

<h2>Let&#8217;s Talk</h2>
In October, we reported that scientists planned to craft an updated version of the <a href="https://www.seti.org/seti-institute/project/details/arecibo-message" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Arecibo Message</a> — a radio message sent into space 44 years ago to draw the attention of aliens — and they wanted the public&#8217;s help deciding what the new message should be.
Now that you&#8217;ve had a couple of weeks to think about what you&#8217;d say to aliens if given the chance, here&#8217;s how you can make your voice heard.
<h2>A True Challenge</h2>
On Friday, the Arecibo Observatory (AO) posted details on the New Arecibo Message global challenge to its <a href="http://www.areciboobservatory.org/challenge/about-challenge.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a>.
According to the site, teams of 10 students in kindergarten through college can participate in the challenge, but doing so won&#8217;t be as simple as emailing a proposed message to the AO.
The students will need to break coded messages, solve brain puzzles, and more at various points throughout the year in order to unlock details about the challenge, including instructions for registering their team and specifications for crafting their message.
These mini challenges will require each team to demonstrate knowledge of the AO, the scientific method, the space sciences, and other AO-related topics.
<h2>Get Ready</h2>
The AO will release the first part of the challenge on December 16, so students have just under a month to form their teams and get ready to put their knowledge of space to the test.
The challenge will continue for approximately nine months, with the AO declaring a winning team during a week-long event in October 2019 celebrating the observatory&#8217;s 56th anniversary.
“We have quite a few surprises in store for participants and we will be sharing more details as the competition progresses,” AO Director Francisco Cordova said in a <a href="https://today.ucf.edu/new-arecibo-observatory-message-challenge-announced/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a>. “We can’t wait to see what our young people across the globe come up with.”
READ MORE: <a href="https://today.ucf.edu/new-arecibo-observatory-message-challenge-announced/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New Arecibo Observatory Message Challenge Announced</a> [University of Central Florida]
More on the Arecibo Message: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/arecibo-message-aliens" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Scientists Want Your Help Crafting a Message to Aliens</a>

The Arecibo Message needs updating. Are you up to the challenge?

Here’s how you can help scientists craft a message to aliens

Spread the Word

The Arecibo Observatory has unveiled the details of its New Arecibo Message global challenge, a contest to craft a new message to aliens.

Here’s How You Can Help Scientists Craft a Message to Aliens

It won't be as easy as emailing a suggestion, though.

<h2>Phone Home</h2>
Scientists have a new idea to contact alien civilizations: build a huge laser and start blasting exoplanets with messages.
We could build such a laser, according to research by MIT scientists <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aae380">published Monday in The Astrophysical Journal</a>, with technology that either exists today or requires just minor developments.
<h2>Death Star</h2>
The laser is <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/technosignatures-nasa-alien-life">more of a homing beacon</a> than a death ray. A one or two-megawatt laser, beamed out through a 30 to 45-meter telescope, would be powerful enough to reach planets as far as 20,000 light years away. For reference, the star nearest our sun is Proxima Centauri, which is <a href="https://www.britannica.com/story/how-do-we-know-how-far-away-the-stars-are">just over four light years</a> from us.
If any planet hit with our laser that happens, by <a href="https://futurism.com/life-universe-scientist-drake-equation-study">some infinitesimally small chance</a>, to host extraterrestrial life that had developed advanced technology, its occupants would be able to look back at Earth and see signs of life.
<h2>Waiting Game</h2>
The scientists behind this research are counting on SETI, the government agency responsible for scanning the night sky for alien life, to complete more full-sky scans and invest in the infrared technology that could help identify which distant planets likely <a href="https://futurism.com/martian-lakes-alien-life">have habitable atmospheres</a>.
With those advances and if there are aliens out where with a laser of their own — that’s a big &#8220;if&#8221; — the researchers argue that we could have a back-and-forth conversation over decades or centuries, with each message taking many years to reach its target.
READ MORE: <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2018/laser-attract-alien-astronomers-study-1105">E.T., we’re home</a> [MIT News]
More on the search for alien life: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/arecibo-message-aliens">Scientists want Your Help Crafting a Message to Aliens</a>

Scientists want to equip Earth with some planetary porch lights.

A giant space laser could help us find, contact alien life

You Up?

A giant space laser, built with mostly-existing technology, could serve as a homing beacon for any aliens that might be out there.

A Giant Space Laser on Earth Could Blast Messages at Alien Planets

And hey, it might work within “decades to centuries!”

<h2>PHONE HOME</h2>
Are we alone in the universe? Hunting for biological signatures of life on <a href="https://futurism.com/life-on-europa-nuclear-energy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">moons</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-is-sending-a-lander-to-discover-whether-life-exists-on-europa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">exoplanets</a> is just one way we might find an answer.
Another is to look for &#8220;technosignatures&#8221; of alien technology — radio signals or microwaves coming from deep in space. The idea has been around for decades, but now Congress is <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/seti-technosignatures-nasa-jill-tarter/558512/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pushing NASA</a> to ramp up the approach. This week, the agency held a <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-is-taking-a-new-look-at-searching-for-life-beyond-earth" target="_blank" rel="noopener">three-day workshop</a> in Houston to explore the state of the field and what might come next.
<h2>ALIEN TECH</h2>
The <a href="https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/technosignatures2018/organizers/">organizing committee</a> included representatives from NASA, the Planetary Science Institute, the SETI Institute and several large research universities. During a Reddit <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9jebu2/we_are_scientists_looking_for_technosignatures/">question-and-answer session</a> on Thursday between workshop participants and the public, Penn State professor of astronomy and astrophysics Jason Wright <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9jebu2/we_are_scientists_looking_for_technosignatures/e6qux0s">said that</a> though the search for alien technosignatures goes back decades, its pace slowed in the United States after the 1990s.
But more recently, Wright wrote, there&#8217;s been a &#8220;resurgence of activity&#8221; in the field. So it&#8217;s time for those actively looking for technosignatures to be sure they&#8217;re looking for the right things.
At the workshop, where <a href="https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/technosignatures2018/format/">the agenda</a> featured events about detecting megastructures and how signs of alien technology might be found in big data, NASA outlined <a href="https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/technosignatures2018/">four broad goals</a> for its participants:
<ul>
<li>Define the current state of the technosignature field, identifying past projects and current limitations</li>
<li>Identify near-term advances in the field, noting current projects and tools that could have a future impact</li>
<li>Look at the longer-term potential of the technosignature field, identifying needed tools and experiments</li>
<li>Find ways NASA can work with the private sector and philanthropic organizations to advance technosignature research</li>
</ul>
<h2>LIFE SIGNS</h2>
On Reddit, workshop speaker Andrew Siemion, Director of Berkeley SETI Research Center, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9jebu2/we_are_scientists_looking_for_technosignatures/e6qtakj" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said that if</a> NASA does identify alien life, it will exercise caution.
&#8220;There are no plans to attempt communication — our technosignature searches are looking and listening,&#8221; he said.
Whether the efforts lead to the discovery of intelligent life or not, we&#8217;ll at least know that we left no stone unturned in the hunt.
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-is-taking-a-new-look-at-searching-for-life-beyond-earth" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA Is Taking a New Look at Searching for Life Beyond Earth</a> [NASA]
More on technosignatures: <a href="https://futurism.com/astronomer-instead-of-alien-life-should-we-be-searching-for-signs-of-alien-tech/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Astronomer: Instead of Alien Life, Should We Be Searching for Signs of Alien Tech?</a>

The agency is on the hunt for "alien technosignatures."

NASA is looking for new ways to detect alien technology

NASA is ramping up its focus on hunting for technosignatures, signs of technology emanating from alien worlds, in the search for extraterrestrial life.

NASA Is Looking For New Ways to Detect Alien Technology

We might be able to find aliens by looking for their tech.

Where the heck are <a href="https://futurism.com/theories-intelligent-life-fermi-paradox/">the aliens</a>? We&#8217;ve sent them a <a href="https://futurism.com/a-40-year-old-voyager-spacecraft-can-guide-aliens-to-earth/">golden record</a>, we&#8217;ve looked for signs of them on Mars and to the <a href="https://futurism.com/nasas-twin-voyager-probes-are-the-most-important-spacecraft-ever-launched/">far reaches</a> of the solar system. We&#8217;ve got our <a href="https://futurism.com/seti-scientist-bets-everyone-a-cup-of-coffee-that-well-find-intelligent-life-in-20-years/">ears pressed to the ground</a>, listening for them as best we know how. And still, nothing.
One scary prospect: what if they&#8217;re all already dead? And climate change was the culprit?
That wouldn&#8217;t bode well for us — not only because our search for aliens will come up empty, but because of what it may portend for our own future.
This is according to a study published May 1 in <a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2017.1671">the journal Astrobiology</a>. A team from the University of Rochester used mathematical models based on a real-life lost civilization to examine how other civilizations, humans or extraterrestrial, may have fared when faced with planet-altering climate change. 
 
When thinking about civilizations that doomed themselves, few are better examples than Easter Island. &#8220;Easter Island presents a particularly useful example since it is often taken as a lesson for global sustainability,&#8221; Adam Frank, the lead author of the study, <a href="https://www.livescience.com/62750-climate-change-killed-aliens-easter-island.html">told Live Science</a>. &#8220;Many studies indicate that Easter Island&#8217;s inhabitants depleted their resources, leading to starvation and termination of the island&#8217;s civilization.&#8221; Importantly, Easter Island was a closed system — isolated from larger land masses, the island&#8217;s inhabitants didn&#8217;t have anywhere else to turn once they ran out of resources where they lived.
By creating models of Easter Island&#8217;s inhabitants alongside their rapidly depleting natural resources, the research team was able to envision several possible end points for any civilization with limited natural resources (such as ours on Earth).
<h6><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-132418" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2018/06/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5saXZlc2NpZW5jZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzEwMC8xMTQvb3JpZ2luYWwvMjYyMl9EaWVvZmZfR3JhcGhzX3YxLTEwMjR4ODg4LmpwZz8xNTI4Mjk0Mzk5-1200x1041.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="1041" /> 
Credit: University of Rochester illustration / Michael Osadciw</h6>
These charts, created by Frank&#8217;s team, are a sort of &#8220;choose your own adventure&#8221; for the fate of civilization. In Scenario A, subtly named &#8220;die-off,&#8221; the population climbs so rapidly that the environment can no longer sustain life.
&#8220;Imagine if seven out of 10 people you knew died quickly,&#8221; Frank said. &#8220;It&#8217;s not clear a complex technological civilization could survive that kind of change.&#8221;
In scenarios C and D, different flavors of &#8220;collapse,&#8221; growing populations are confronted with steadily rising temperatures. In one case, the civilization continues to grow without adjusting and soon depletes its resources. In the other, the civilization shifts toward sustainability, but the change is too little, too late. Its fate is sealed.
Luckily, there&#8217;s one situation in which the civilization doesn&#8217;t completely collapse. That&#8217;s  scenario B: sustainability. In this model, a civilization has responded to the threat of climate change by adopting sustainable practices soon enough to save itself. The population levels off without pushing its environment to the point of collapse.
Of the four scenarios, we don&#8217;t seem to be moving towards the one that would allow our civilization to survive.
There are many theories as to why we have yet to find other life forms, including the possibility of a <a href="https://futurism.com/theories-intelligent-life-fermi-paradox/">great extinction event</a> every civilization must overcome. Imagining how alien civilizations may have approached similar global threats might make us better prepared to confront our own.
After all, the difference between survival and a grim fate in each scenario? How soon each civilization responded to the impending shortage of resources.
&#8220;Across cosmic space and time, you&#8217;re going to have winners — who managed to see what was going on and figure out a path through it — and losers, who just couldn&#8217;t get their act together and their civilization fell by the wayside,&#8221; Frank told Live Science.
&#8220;The question is, which category do we want to be in?&#8221;

Sustainability is the only way to survive.

Maybe we haven't found aliens because they all died from climate change

Sci-Fi Visions

Mathematical models of a real-life lost civilization (from Easter Island) examine how other civilizations, terrestrial or extra, could face climate change.

Maybe We Haven't Found Aliens Because They All Died From Climate Change

Which fate will we choose for ourselves?

Maybe We Haven’t Found Aliens Because They All Died From Climate Change

When astronomers looking for new exoplanets planets gaze up at the tranquil night sky and wish upon a star, they’re really just wishing those stars would get the hell out of the way. That’s because, when it comes to looking for planets, light can be the enemy. Starlight tends to totally wash out the planets, rendering them effectively invisible.
To filter out that light, <a href="http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2018/018769/hello-darkness">a team of international researchers</a> led by UC Santa Barbara physicist <a class="ext" href="http://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~bmazin/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Benjamin Mazin</a> developed a new tool called the DARK-speckle Near-infrared Energy-resolved Superconducting Spectrophotometer – A.K.A. DARKNESS (yeah, they probably did that on purpose). It&#8217;s the largest and most advanced superconducting camera in the world.
With DARKNESS, astronomers expect to spot planets that reflect light 100 million times dimmer than that of the stars they orbit. This, the researchers say, will get them as close as possible to the theoretical contrast limit (the point at which their findings get distorted).
The 10,000-pixel camera can record the exact point in time at which individual photons arrive, which helps researchers tell whether they’ve actually spotted a planet or just some cosmic distortion, which they call &#8220;speckles.&#8221;
Using DARKNESS, which is due for another round of testing and demonstrations in May, to filter out the light from stars will allow researchers to search for new planets in these Goldilocks or habitable zones – the just-right distance a planet has to be from a star to sustain life. Once these planets are spotted, researchers will be able to investigate them to look for signs of atmospheres or water.
While we’re nowhere near ready to begin manned missions to distant planets, the new technology used in DARKNESS marks a paradigm shift from other telescope cameras that are unable to directly image these planets. In turn, this may help inspire an entirely new generation of technology for probing and examining distant stars.

Star light, star bright, can you turn it down just a little?

Lights out: DARKNESS camera filters starlight to spot planets

With DARKNESS, astronomers expect to be able to spot planets that reflect light 100 million times dimmer than that of the stars they orbit.

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Lights Out: DARKNESS Camera Filters Starlight to Spot Planets

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