AstroNews Feb 2002

ALIEN SPECIAL

• UFO NEXT TO THE MOON
• IS THERE LIFE ON MARS?
• SETI@home: ET ON MY PC
• DO GODS NEED SCOPES?
• TALK ABOUT ALIENS
• DUMB AND DUMBER
• DRAKE EQUATION
• ALIEN MESSAGE DECODING
• SOLAR SYSTEM SIGNPOST
• NO SUN, NO OXYGEN, DOING FINE
• ET GETS MY TAX MONEY?
• SHERMER'S LAST LAW

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Up This Month
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FIRST ANNUAL ALIEN SPECIAL

Look up!
 

UFO NEXT TO THE MOON

As a rare prime time bonus for North Americans, the Moon will appear to eclipse Saturn from view. This event favors East Coast observers. Most Americans won't see another Saturn occultation (Latin for "hiding") for decades.

Similar occasions have resulted in phone calls to planetariums, weather offices and police precincts. Some callers inquire about the UFO that's closely hovering in the vicinity of the Moon.

Occultation Details :
http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/occultations/
 

IS THERE LIFE ON MARS?

The $300 million orbiter reached Mars in October 2001 after a journey of 286 million miles (460 million km). While Odyssey does not carry instruments for detecting life on Mars, data from the mission will help us understand whether the environment of Mars was-or is--conducive to life.

Mars Odyssey is searching for water, mapping surface minerals and measuring radiation levels -- observations that could provide clues about possible extraterrestrial life as well as check for possible hazards for future colonists.

Like a virtual shovel "digging into" the surface, the Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS) instrument on Odyssey will peer into the subsurface of Mars and measure the amount of hydrogen that exists there. Since hydrogen is most likely present in the form of water ice, the spectrometer will be able to measure directly the amount of permanent ground ice and how it changes with the seasons.

Mars Odyssey Site:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/
 
 

DO GODS NEED SCOPES?

Until 1968 the summit was as desolate as Mars, apart from a few stone shrines to the gods. Today 13 astronomical observatories and satellite stations, together worth more than $1 billion, sit inside a 12,000-acre science reserve leased to the University of Hawaii.

For native Hawaiians, the summit is the most sacred area on their islands. For astronomers, the dry, dark skies up there are—so far as earth-based astronomy goes—as close as you can get to heaven. On Mauna Kea scientists have discovered planets orbiting stars outside the solar system, and have proved that the rate of the expansion of the universe is accelerating.

The university was criticized for new development plans in 1998. The land, which belonged to Hawaii's queen before the Americans deposed her in 1893, is considered by native Hawaiians to be merely “ceded” to the United States. Rumors persist that ancient bones were uncovered (and then disappeared) during the construction of telescopes.

Plenty of locals think that the telescopes bring prestige and prosperity to an island in urgent need of jobs. Hardly anybody blames the astronomers for building there in the first place. In the late 1960s there was little awareness of native culture, which was suppressed after the overthrow of the monarchy.

Signs have been put up explaining the cultural importance of the area. A defunct astronomical test site is being restored to its natural state. Some locals want the scopes taken down at once; others want development stopped; still others want it better run. Astronomers, though sympathetic to cultural arguments, ultimately just want to go on building bigger and better toys on the summit.

The university's lease lasts until 2033. But the proposed Next Generation Large Telescope is designed over decades. With Native Hawaiians expecting far more consultation over the use of the summit, the chances planning big new observatories on Mauna Kea are receding into those dark, dry skies.
[Source: The Economist]

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SETI@home: ET ON MY PC

How? The SETI@home screen saver is a scientific analytical software. It performs a mathematical operations on data you download from the SETI program.

SETI@home uses the largest telescope in the world, the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico, to continuously scan the sky for radio signals. So far no signs of life. So if
you want to help, maybe you can be the lucky one who finds ET!

Get SETI@home version 3.03:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu

ASTROTIP

TALK ABOUT ALIENS

Sciforums.com is a great place to exchange thoughts or just see what others have to say about a certain topic. Science, technology, philosophy, it's all here.

Sciforums.com
http://www.sciforums.com/
 
 

DUMB AND DUMBER

SETI is the search for ET. Note that "Intelligence" is the last word of the SETI acronym. Aliens that SETI can find will be at least as scientifically competent as folks here on Earth. What defines a species as intelligent, and how do SETI researchers decide?

Investigating terrestrial IQs may help estimate how often sentient beings evolve elsewhere. To test human intelligence is straightforward, if controversial. But how can we assess the brain power of other critters? One approach is to compute an "encephalization quotient," which a measure of how weighty the brain is for an animal of a given body size.

Would ET be at about our level of intelligence? The answer depends on only one thing: how long technological civilizations last.

Frank Drake, author of the Drake Equation (see below), estimated the average lifetime of technologically adept civilizations at 10 thousand years. Not overly optimistic - Homo sapiens has been around for 300,000 years, so another 10 thousand isn't much. Once technology gains a foothold we are near the end of our ride. If Drake is right we are among the new kids on the block.

Is there intelligent life on Earth? By our standards, maybe. But by ETs, we are probably as dumb as doorknobs.

Source:
http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_dumbest_020131.html
 
 

DRAKE EQUATION

It identifies those factors thought to play a role in the development of such civilizations. There is no unique solution to this equation, but it is a generally accepted tool used by the scientific community to examine these factors.

The Drake Equation
http://www.space.com./searchforlife/seti_drake_equation.html

Try out the Drake Equation Calculator:
http://www.seti.org/science/drake-calc.html

ET PHONE HOME!

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DISTANT DISCOVERIES

ALIEN MESSAGE DECODING

Unlike previous messages, this one is designed to withstand interference and transmission interruption. The test will see if it can be decoded easily.

Meaningless noise has been added to the data, and some parts have even been deleted. This degradation is intended to simulate interference that might be experienced during transmission to distant planets.

The researchers who devised the message eventually hope to design a system that could automatically decode an alien reply.

Read the whole article:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991757
 
 

SOLAR SYSTEM SIGNPOST

A new study reveals that our own Sun is surrounded by such a disk, suggesting that the best place to hunt for planetary systems like our own is around long-lived stars encircled by dust.

Learn more:
http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=29471

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FAR OUT FACTS

NO SUN, NO OXYGEN, DOING FINE

This evidence of life's tenacity and creativity, increases speculation about life on other worlds. Similar organisms might in fact exist on Mars and other planets.

The microbes are one-celled organisms called Archaea. Your  biology textbook will remind you that archaeans are single-celled creatures that join bacteria to make up a category of life called the Prokaryotes (pro-carry-oats).

These archaea are called methanogens. They eat hydrogen, breathe carbon dioxide, and belch methane. The hydrogen is produced by hot water reacting with bedrock 600 feet below the Beaverhead Mountains. They produce methane as a byproduct of their weird metabolism.

Although types of Archaea have been found before, this community is unlike anything else on Earth.

Most life on Earth flourishes not only in the presence of water, but also relies on oxygen, sunlight and organic carbon. But conditions on the rest of the planets -- and perhaps beyond the solar system -- are far more hostile.

Astrobiologists said these real-life microbes closely resemble what they imagine might live beneath the dry, barren surface of Mars or the thick glaciers of Europa, one of Jupiter's moons.

Microbes like these have been the subject of speculation for 30 years. A team of seven government and university scientists spent more than a decade looking for promising locations. They were looking for a subterranean environment that had water but no sunlight, oxygen or organic carbon.

Some places, such as hot sulfur vents on the ocean floor, support rich and strange life forms. But they are not entirely devoid of organic carbon sources, since bits of decayed plant life drift to the sea floor and provide food.

In light of the findings, researchers said the question should no longer be whether extreme life exists on Mars and elsewhere.
 
 

ET GETS MY TAX MONEY?

The answer is FALSE on all three accounts. SETI is not a national government program. Most SETI experiments have been conducted at university operated radio observatories and supported by such piecemeal grants as could be found for them. Budgets are a few scant million at most.

Private organizations such as the SETI Institute and the Planetary Society, operating with generous member contributions and donations, help sponsor SETI searches. The SETI@home program (see above) has found a formula that allows millions of people contribute simply by downloading a screensaver-like software.
 
 

SHERMER'S LAST LAW

Here it is - Shermer's Last Law:
Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God

To learn more:
http://www.sciam.com/2002/0102issue/0102skeptic.html

We hope you enjoyed our FIRST ANNUAL ALIEN SPECIAL!! 

If you are an alien reading this, please stop by for a cup of tea.

AstroNews is an electronic newsletter by Kahl Consultants. Stay abreast of astronomy and extraterrestrial news. 

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http://www.kahl.net/astro
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