By 
October 4th, 2016
Credit: Paul Duffield/G. Hüdepohl/ESO via METI International
To message or not to message? That’s the question to ponder when considering the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. There’s on-going discussion and debate about giving ET the “hi-sign.”
It is dubbed Messaging Extra-terrestrial Intelligence, or METI for signaling shorthand.
Douglas Vakoch, President of METI International in San Francisco, California is author of a new and enlightening bit of correspondence, “In defence of METI,” published today in the journal Nature Physics.
Closer look
“At METI International, we’re committed to taking a closer look at the assumptions that have driven the search for life beyond Earth over the past half century, as we seek innovative alternatives to traditional SETI efforts,” Vakoch told Inside Outer Space.
“Sending intentional, powerful signals to potential extraterrestrial civilizations is one of our top priorities,” he said, “but we’re also expanding methods to search for life beyond Earth, and to anticipate the variety of life that may exist in the cosmos.”
Credit: Paul Duffield/G. Hüdepohl/ESO via METI International.
Cosmic static
Vakoch explains that SETI programs have typically focused on using a few very large telescopes.
“That makes good sense when you’re searching at radio frequencies, where you need incredible computing power to pull artificial signals out of the cosmic static…especially if you want to do a real-time follow-up of any candidate signals. It would be incredibly expensive to equip a lot of observatories with that capability,”Vakoch notes.
Optical SETI: Extend the network
But with optical SETI, Vakoch adds, Earthkind can launch powerful searches for brief laser pulses using only modest-sized telescopes, as long as they are paired with sophisticated signal processing capabilities.
The Boquete Optical SETI Observatory at Boquete, Panama.
Credit: Boquete Optical SETI Observatory
“Fortunately, with a bit of innovative engineering, it costs only a few tens of thousands of dollars to add that signal processing capability to an existing optical telescope,” says Vakoch.
One of the priorities at METI International’s over the next year is to extend the network of optical SETI observatories. Doing so, builds on the accomplishments of the facilities in Panama and Michigan that the group is already working with.
Optical SETI circuity.
Credit: Owl Observatory
Life as we don’t know it
“But we also need to step back and ask ourselves, “Is life as it we know it on Earth the only possibility?”
Next year, to help probe that question, METI International will host a daylong workshop called What is Life? – An Extraterrestrial Perspective. That meeting is being held at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris on March 22, 2017.
“We plan to continue these meetings in Paris every two years moving forward,” Vakoch adds. “Our first Paris meeting will bring together leading experts on subjects ranging from the origin of life to the evolution of intelligence, as we ponder the alternatives to life as we know it on Earth.”
Resources
To read the “In defence of METI” communiqué from Vakoch, here’s a link made available by the publisher at:
For more information on METI International, go to:
Also, check out this Ideacity 2016 video presentation Calling the Cosmos at:
Posted in Space News
