Article -The Holy Grail: Small, Rocky Worlds - SETI Thursday

Article - The Holy Grail: Small, Rocky Worlds - SETI Thursday - by Seth
Shostak

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/s...il_060202.html

Seth talks about the newly found ~5 Earth-mass planet and how one can
use the Sun's gravity to lens Radio waves for SETI by sending an
observation probe to 550 A.U.'s from the Sun. Although this isn't
exacly news, this impressive-sounding mission would utilize

"thirty thousand times the collecting area of the gargantuan Arecibo
Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico. It could detect a transmitter with the
power of your local TV station at a distance of a hundred light-years,
even if the alien broadcasters weren't beaming our way."

(Hmmm, all that and only less than 1% of the galaxy can be searched for
leakage? Hard business this SETI schtick!)

Jason H.

Jason,

Thanks for the link and summary.

Jason H. wrote:
Article - The Holy Grail: Small, Rocky Worlds - SETI Thursday - by Seth
Shostak

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/s...il_060202.html

Seth talks about the newly found ~5 Earth-mass planet and how one can

Is there another Boinc project there waiting to be spawned to help in
the search? There's some fantastic numbers there in how the (optical)
gravitational lensing search is being done!


use the Sun's gravity to lens Radio waves for SETI by sending an
observation probe to 550 A.U.'s from the Sun. Although this isn't
exacly news, this impressive-sounding mission would utilize

"thirty thousand times the collecting area of the gargantuan Arecibo
Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico. It could detect a transmitter with the
power of your local TV station at a distance of a hundred light-years,
even if the alien broadcasters weren't beaming our way."

Very neat... And a good idea. Shame about the the 550AU bit...


(Hmmm, all that and only less than 1% of the galaxy can be searched for
leakage? Hard business this SETI schtick!)

Now that /is/ the "Executive Summary"!


Keep searchin',
Martin

--
---------- OS? What's that?! (Martin_285 on Mandriva)
- Martin - To most people, "Operating System" is unknown & strange.
- 53N 1W - Mandriva 10LE GNU Linux - An OS for Supercomputers & PCs
---------- http://www1.mandrivalinux.com/en/concept.php3

SETI only a few light years away, you'll never thier radio. Do they use
radios? The last report I heard was of very fast communication so that
signals sent today would get replys over 40 light years in about 4 months.
That's not radio is it? Maia saw it before her brain was chopped out.

By the way did you notice anything about the air over the last few days? Is
the air fresher now?

Chris.

"Martin 53N 1W" wrote in message ...
[...]
use the Sun's gravity to lens Radio waves for SETI by sending an
observation probe to 550 A.U.'s from the Sun. Although this isn't
exacly news, this impressive-sounding mission would utilize

"thirty thousand times the collecting area of the gargantuan Arecibo
Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico. It could detect a transmitter with the
power of your local TV station at a distance of a hundred light-years,
even if the alien broadcasters weren't beaming our way."

Very neat... And a good idea. Shame about the the 550AU bit...

Yes. That seems a very expensive solution.

The other thing is that gravitational lensing effect typically amplifies a signal 3 to 4 times at most.
I do not see how he gets to " roughly thirty thousand times the collecting area of the gargantuan Arecibo Radio Telescope".

But if this is true, and we can theoretically use the Sun as a radio lens,
then I wonder if we can instead use nearby planets as lenses, and
stay here comfortably on warm planet Earth...

Anyone ?

Rob



(Hmmm, all that and only less than 1% of the galaxy can be searched for
leakage? Hard business this SETI schtick!)

Now that /is/ the "Executive Summary"!


Keep searchin',
Martin

--
---------- OS? What's that?! (Martin_285 on Mandriva)
- Martin - To most people, "Operating System" is unknown & strange.
- 53N 1W - Mandriva 10LE GNU Linux - An OS for Supercomputers & PCs
---------- http://www1.mandrivalinux.com/en/concept.php3

Chris wrote:

SETI only a few light years away, you'll never thier radio. Do they use
radios? The last report I heard was of very fast communication so that
signals sent today would get replys over 40 light years in about 4 months.
That's not radio is it? Maia saw it before her brain was chopped out.

By the way did you notice anything about the air over the last few days? Is
the air fresher now?

Can I have some of what you're smokin'?
On second thoughts, no thanks.

--
I recommend Macs to my friends, and Windows machines
to those whom I don't mind billing by the hour