SETI announced the creation of a project for search for post-physical lifeforms

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SETI announced the creation of a project for search for post-physical lifeforms. The new team is called POSS.

POSS stands for Project of Search for Post-Physical Signals. POSS consists of:

Professor of Physics Dr. Konstantin Postnikov (Russia)

Prof. Alexander Miroshnichenko (Russia)

Prof. Igor Volobuyev (Russia)

Prof. Mikhail Baskin (Russia)

Prof. Igor Panyushkin (Russia)

The project is funded by the Ministry of Science and Education of the Russian Federation.

Project description:

We assume that life forms exist on planets orbiting distant stars. They are in general similar to us, so we can expect that they also use radio waves. However, life forms on planets have different characteristics in comparison with us. For example, they do not need a light source (sunlight). These are their unique properties, so if we are in contact with these lifeforms they could send us radio signals. Therefore, POSS will search for signals from planets in the nearest stars for the purpose of finding the first signs of life from other worlds. This work involves a lot of very important questions:

What will the frequency range of signals be for lifeforms?

Will they use radio waves, optical or other media?

How will lifeforms on a planet communicate with us?

What is a range of communication possibilities?

Can lifeforms send information about their location?

We will try to answer all of these questions. And if it turns out that the answers to these questions are affirmative, then POSS will take another step and attempt to communicate with extraterrestrials. This will be a crucial stage for creating contacts with extraterrestrials. We will then start a series of experiments to understand the potential of extraterrestrial lifeforms and try to find out what kind of information they can provide us.

The idea of creating a project for search for post-humans with radio telescopes at the Department of Radio Astronomy of Nencki Institute in Warsaw was born in the summer of 2003. One of the initiators was Paweł Kuras who gave an extensive information on the subject. The idea came from this presentation. From that time, our department has been actively cooperating in the project which involves people from different universities, organizations and individuals from our society. There are currently more than 200 people who are involved in this project. The participants are in the best conditions to complete their tasks. They cooperate with each other and work with an intense passion. The result of these efforts is the work plan and the concept for the project which was approved by the Head of the Department, Prof. Adam Sikora.

The research on the interstellar medium carried out by the authors of the “Search for Interstellar Communications” project is described in the article “Searching for signals from an advanced civilization” which appeared in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. It turns out that the search for communications sent from outer space has become possible because of development of radio telescopes which have increased sensitivity and the possibility to detect interstellar emissions at shorter wavelengths.

The concept is a simple one. A spacecraft on its way to another star system takes pictures with an onboard camera. These pictures are received on Earth and analyzed. We assume that an advanced civilization is capable of sending out messages not only through light (the so-called traditional method) but also through radio or other electromagnetic waves. This technique, as well as optical, uses the Doppler effect. An electromagnetic wave whose frequency changes during the travel time to a receiver, will be received more easily if the spacecraft sends the message toward the observer. Thus we can find a change in the received signal. Therefore, we will know if the message is sent toward us or away from us, and will be able to calculate the speed of the spacecraft. After receiving the information about the spacecraft’s speed, we know how to translate it into information about the distance and time of travel. However, it is clear that finding the message is not the main goal of the authors of the project. The main purpose of the research is to find out how powerful and frequent are signals sent by civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy and whether there is any intelligence in outer space.

If the extraterrestrial intelligence sends out signals at the rate of one per year, this will not make any sense. In the Milky Way galaxy there are a few hundred billions stars which could host life. It will be impossible to send a signal to all of them in a short time. But some interstellar travelers may have traveled to the nearest stars hundreds of thousands of years ago, before humans appeared on Earth. And then, who knows, there might be some aliens living on a planet or asteroid which hosts life.

A more optimistic view was taken by the team of astronomers and astrophysicists who wrote in 2009 about the so-called “Panspermia Hypothesis”. They suggest that life appeared on Earth due to the impact of a meteorite. So they think that if extraterrestrial civilizations use technology as well, then the most likely place to detect a signal is the Moon.

However, the scientists at NASA may soon give us an answer to this question. In June 2015, a group of astronomers and scientists at NASA, in collaboration with the US Air Force, plan to launch the first satellite in a series of radio telescopes called Allen Telescope Array (ATA). The purpose of ATA is to find radio signals that may be emitted by aliens. According to the scientists, ATA will be able to detect radio signals from very distant civilizations as it covers the entire sky for an extended period of time. The scientists have a plan in place. According to the information on the website of the project, by 2020 we should be able to listen in on the radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations.

There’s no evidence that aliens are already transmitting radio signals into space. However, a number of scientists are convinced that extraterrestrials are very likely to visit our planet, which will happen in many thousands of years.

We also have the possibility to contact extraterrestrial life with the help of laser beams. In fact, some physicists believe that we have already made contact with aliens. They say that these extraterrestrials communicate with us via laser beams.

Astronomers say that this method would be the most practical to contact alien life forms. Because, in this case, the first signal would appear on the Moon, which is only a little more than three thousand miles away from Earth. This is only one of the reasons to believe that we have already contacted extraterrestrials.

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