Article re Harvard OSETI w/Horowitz, Tarter, Lazio et al

Article - Professor Searches for Aliens - by Rebecca M. Milzoff (Feb.
9,'04)

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=357295

A nice pop article with comments from Dr.'s Paul Horowitz, Jill
Tarter, Joseph Lazio. A couple I found interesting we

"...Of the 20,000 observations his telescope has made, Horowitz says,
no decidedly conclusive observations have been reached."

(Hmmmmm.)

And after some positive comments from Dr. Tarter,

"...Other astronomers, such as Dr. Joseph Lazio of the Naval Research
Laboratory, are more skeptical..."

(Lt.'s name in lights.)

Read the rest at the link.

Regards, Jason H.

"JH" == Jason H writes:

JH Article - Professor Searches for Aliens - by Rebecca M. Milzoff
JH (Feb. 9,'04)

JH http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=357295

JH A nice pop article with comments from Dr.'s Paul Horowitz, Jill
JH Tarter, Joseph Lazio. A couple I found interesting we
[...]
JH And after some positive comments from Dr. Tarter,

JH "...Other astronomers, such as Dr. Joseph Lazio of the Naval
JH Research Laboratory, are more skeptical..."

For the record, here's the entire set of comments that I sent to the
reporter. Am I skeptical that OSETI will find anything? Yes. Do I
think it is worth doing? Yes.

------------------------------

In general terms, Prof. Horowitz is justifiably highly regarded for
his expertise in building instruments. This is a skill that has been
slowly withering within the United States, as fewer and fewer students
are trained in developing new instruments for telescopes. With
respect to SETI, Prof. Horowitz has worked to improve capabilities
both in radio and optical SETI programs.

Of particular mention is the Project META that he conducted, URL:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...pJ...415..218H
. The results of that survey spurred much additional research, to
the point that for a while we had to consider seriously the
possibility that signals for extraterrestrial civilizations had been
found. (Sadly, in some of the followup work that I've done, we've now
shown that, with additional observations, we can rule out this
possibility. For a while, though, it was tantalizing.)

As for his recent work on optical SETI, this idea of optical SETI
seems to have become quite popular. I'm of two minds. On the one
hand, we know so little that we might as well search in whatever way
we can. Moreover, who knows, by looking at the Universe in a
different way we might find something surprising, even if it is not
what we were trying to find.

OTOH, I think there are a number of potential obstacles to finding
optical laser pulses from other civilizations. First, there is dust
and gas in the space between the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. This
dust and gas absorbs light, so that any civilizations would have to be
fairly close (within a few thousand light years) for us to be able to
see their laser pulses. This is in contrast to radio wave
transmissions which are effectively not absorbed at all. Thus, they
can cross the hundreds of thousands of light years in the Milky Way
Galaxy. Second, as I understand the details of optical SETI, the
transmitted laser beam would be highly focussed, even over
interstellar distances. Thus, any transmitting civilizations would
have to know about us before they would consider trying to transmit
any pulses.

Still, I come back to my earlier point, looking at the Universe in a
new way, as Prof. Horowitz is doing, has often (always?) yielded new
information, even if not what was expected initially.

As for SETI research, well, it's one of the big questions, isn't it?
People have speculated for millennia about the possibility of life
elsewhere. We're finding planets, lots of them (though none of the
ones we know now could support life as we know it). Is it crazy to
suggest that there might be Earth-like planets out there? I don't
think so. When I tell people that I am an astronomer (e.g., when
sitting on an airplane), their questions are almost always on one of
three topics, cosmology, black holes, or life in the Universe. So I
think it is a Big Question(tm).

Will we have success in the "near future"? Define "near." By the
time you are graduated? I doubt it. In the next 100 years? Many
astronomers are hoping that in the next 20 years, we'll be finding
Earth-like planets.




--
Lt. Lazio, HTML police | e-mail:
No means no, stop rape. | http://patriot.net/%7Ejlazio/
sci.astro FAQ at http://sciastro.astronomy.net/sci.astro.html

"JH" == Jason H writes:

JH Article - Professor Searches for Aliens - by Rebecca M. Milzoff
JH (Feb. 9,'04)

JH http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=357295

JH A nice pop article with comments from Dr.'s Paul Horowitz, Jill
JH Tarter, Joseph Lazio. A couple I found interesting we
[...]
JH And after some positive comments from Dr. Tarter,

JH "...Other astronomers, such as Dr. Joseph Lazio of the Naval
JH Research Laboratory, are more skeptical..."

For the record, here's the entire set of comments that I sent to the
reporter. Am I skeptical that OSETI will find anything? Yes. Do I
think it is worth doing? Yes.

------------------------------

In general terms, Prof. Horowitz is justifiably highly regarded for
his expertise in building instruments. This is a skill that has been
slowly withering within the United States, as fewer and fewer students
are trained in developing new instruments for telescopes. With
respect to SETI, Prof. Horowitz has worked to improve capabilities
both in radio and optical SETI programs.

Of particular mention is the Project META that he conducted, URL:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...pJ...415..218H
. The results of that survey spurred much additional research, to
the point that for a while we had to consider seriously the
possibility that signals for extraterrestrial civilizations had been
found. (Sadly, in some of the followup work that I've done, we've now
shown that, with additional observations, we can rule out this
possibility. For a while, though, it was tantalizing.)

As for his recent work on optical SETI, this idea of optical SETI
seems to have become quite popular. I'm of two minds. On the one
hand, we know so little that we might as well search in whatever way
we can. Moreover, who knows, by looking at the Universe in a
different way we might find something surprising, even if it is not
what we were trying to find.

OTOH, I think there are a number of potential obstacles to finding
optical laser pulses from other civilizations. First, there is dust
and gas in the space between the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. This
dust and gas absorbs light, so that any civilizations would have to be
fairly close (within a few thousand light years) for us to be able to
see their laser pulses. This is in contrast to radio wave
transmissions which are effectively not absorbed at all. Thus, they
can cross the hundreds of thousands of light years in the Milky Way
Galaxy. Second, as I understand the details of optical SETI, the
transmitted laser beam would be highly focussed, even over
interstellar distances. Thus, any transmitting civilizations would
have to know about us before they would consider trying to transmit
any pulses.

Still, I come back to my earlier point, looking at the Universe in a
new way, as Prof. Horowitz is doing, has often (always?) yielded new
information, even if not what was expected initially.

As for SETI research, well, it's one of the big questions, isn't it?
People have speculated for millennia about the possibility of life
elsewhere. We're finding planets, lots of them (though none of the
ones we know now could support life as we know it). Is it crazy to
suggest that there might be Earth-like planets out there? I don't
think so. When I tell people that I am an astronomer (e.g., when
sitting on an airplane), their questions are almost always on one of
three topics, cosmology, black holes, or life in the Universe. So I
think it is a Big Question(tm).

Will we have success in the "near future"? Define "near." By the
time you are graduated? I doubt it. In the next 100 years? Many
astronomers are hoping that in the next 20 years, we'll be finding
Earth-like planets.




--
Lt. Lazio, HTML police | e-mail:
No means no, stop rape. | http://patriot.net/%7Ejlazio/
sci.astro FAQ at http://sciastro.astronomy.net/sci.astro.html