By Marlin (Ben) Schuetz, Director, Boquete Optical SETI Observatory
With clear skies and only little wind during March and the first half of April the weather was excellent for SETI searches. The 2.5 to 3 hour observing sessions logged an average of 20 stars a night. Added to that, the instruments all performed well and the recent photometer improvements have exceeded expectations. My month’s successes were even topped off with fixing a nagging problem with the car. What’s not to like?
By John W. Traphagan, Trustee, METI International
In general, when we think about scientific inquiry, much of its power rests in the idea that everything is open to question. Turning a scientific gaze upon the world enlightens us and opens our potential to understand more deeply, while often challenging us to reconsider previously held beliefs and ideas. But science is not an unambiguously moral good.
Einstein questioned the ethics of building the atomic bomb. We know that research like the Tuskegee study of syphilis in African Americans has deep moral problems related to racism and informed consent. More recently, Stephen Hawking and others have raised ethical questions about whether or not we should engage in sending messages to the stars—the risks of letting ET know we’re here may outweigh the benefits of making contact if ET happens to be in a particularly foul mood when they answer our interstellar phone call.
Are you a student looking for a summer internship in cutting-edge research in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)? Applications are now being accepted for this summer’s program at the Boquete Optical SETI Observatory in Panama, in cooperation with METI International, a nonprofit research and educational organization devoted to the search for life beyond Earth. Enhanced training in science communication will be provided in partnership with the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science’s Young Scientist Program.
By Morris Jones, METI International Advisory Council
“Archaeology is Rubbish.” Such is the title of a book connected to a well-known television series on the subject. Digging out the buried remains of civilizations past is a wonderful way to learn about them. We can understand their level of technology, their social structure, their potential trade links with other civilizations, their language and their culture. Archaeology has been used to discover and document civilizations that have otherwise left no lasting evidence of their time upon the Earth. Ironically, most of the material that is recovered by these digs is not as elaborate as golden sarcophagi. It’s truly rubbish, at least by the standards of the civilization that produced (and discarded) the material. Yet the knowledge it yields is sometimes priceless.
By Morris Jones, METI International Advisory Council
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is challenging to the scientific and wider scholarly communities. Much of the difficulties encountered in academic work on SETI stem from the sheer lack of concrete information concerning real extraterrestrial civilizations. A subsector of the SETI community is actually focused on the possibility that extraterrestrial civilizations do not even exist, and the lack of any evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence (so far) is consistent with this theory.
By Morris Jones, METI International Advisory Council
Science fiction has been ahead of reality for decades. In the future, humanity will build smart machines. These machines could eventually become smarter than us. They could eventually decide that they do not need the species that created them. Then the human race will be exterminated.
By John W. Traphagan, Trustee, METI International
Although the speculation that the odd star KIC 8462852 might have something very unnatural orbiting it--a Dyson swarm or some other megastructure--seems to have been unfounded, it's worth contemplating what it might mean for humanity should the speculation prove to be accurate. From the start, SETI scientists assumed the odds were very much against our neighbor 1,400 light years away having anything other than some natural phenomenon that we simply didn't know about before orbiting it. And observations both by the SETI Institute using the Allen Telescope Array and optical SETI observations in Panama by METI International have shown no evidence of ET. But even with a lack of empirical data, there is a chance, slight as it may be, that we've finally hit the jackpot and found evidence that humans have or had neighbors in the universe.
By Steven J. Dick, Trustee, METI International
One of the primary purposes of METI International is Active SETI, “in which powerful, intentional information-rich signals are transmitted to possible extraterrestrial civilizations." This goal is surprisingly controversial, indicating just how seriously many scientists and others take the possibility of advanced alien life. Indeed, earlier this year a group of scientists signed a statement originating at Berkeley urging caution in any Active SETI project. Although I am in agreement with much of the Berkeley statement, the devil is in the details.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SAN FRANCISCO – The anomalous star KIC 8462852 has baffled astronomers with its erratic dimming, causing some to speculate that it’s orbited by a massive structure built by an extraterrestrial civilization. To help evaluate that possibility, scientists searched for brief laser pulses from the distant star, but found none, as reported in a paper submitted to TheAstrophysical Journal Letters, available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1512.02388 .
By Marlin (Ben) Schuetz, Director of Boquete Optical SETI Observatory
Hello and greetings from the Boquete, Panama Optical SETI Observatory. I will be doing frequent blog posts about Optical SETI in general, this observatory, the upgrades, problems, solutions, and observations. This is a special year here considering the recent upgrade from a 14” Cassegrain to a 20” Newtonian telescope. It is also a special year due to the advent of METI International and the growing potential for this type of activity.