Related papers: Rationale for METI
The discovery of exoplanets has both focused and expanded the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The consideration of Earth as an exoplanet, the knowledge of the orbital parameters of individual exoplanets, and our new understanding…
As we discover numerous habitable planets around other stars in the Milky Way galaxy, including the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, one cannot help but wonder why have we not detected evidence for an advanced alien civilization as of yet.…
Where is everybody? This phrase distills the foreboding of what has come to be known as the Fermi Paradox - the disquieting idea that, if extraterrestrial life is probable in the Universe, then why have we not encountered it? This conundrum…
We propose a search for sources of directed energy systems such as those now becoming technologically feasible on Earth. Recent advances in our own abilities allow us to foresee our own capability that will radically change our ability to…
Astronomy provides a laboratory for extreme physics, a window into environments at extremes of distance, temperature and density that often can't be reproduced in Earth laboratories, or at least not right away. A surprising amount of the…
We consider some implications of the much-discussed circumstellar habitable zones around M-dwarf stars for the conventionally understood radio SETI. We argue that the flaring nature of these stars would further adversely impact local…
An estimate of the maximal informational content available to advanced extraterrestrial or future (post)human civilizations is presented. It is shown that the fundamental thermodynamical considerations may lead to a quantitative estimate of…
In the past several years, scientists have issued a series of warnings about the threats of climate change and other forms of environmental disruption. Here, we provide a scientists' warning on how technology affects these issues.…
First contact with another civilization, or simply another intelligence of some kind, will likely be quite different depending on whether that intelligence is more or less advanced than ourselves. If we assume that the lifetime distribution…
The risk of a catastrophic or existential disaster for our civilization is increasing this century. A significant motivation for a near-term space settlement is the opportunity to safeguard civilization in the event of a planetary-scale…
The Fermi paradox has given rise to various attempts to explain why no evidence of extraterrestrial civilisations was found so far on Earth and in our Solar System. Here, we present a dynamical model for the development of such…
Radio SETI experiments aim to test the hypothesis that extraterrestrial civilizations emit detectable signals from communication, propulsion, or other technologies. The unprecedented capabilities of next generation radio telescopes,…
The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the strong likelihood of alien intelligent life emerging (under a wide variety of assumptions) and the absence of any visible evidence for such emergence. We use this intriguing unlikeness to…
Humanity has the knowledge to solve its problems but lacks the moral insight to implement these ideas on a global scale. New moral insight can be obtained through transformative experiences that allow us to examine and refine our underlying…
It is argued that dark energy -or something dynamically equivalent at the background level- is necessary if the expanding universe is to behave as an ordinary macroscopic system; that is, if it is to tend to some thermodynamic equilibrium…
What is the chance we start a conversation with another civilization like our own? Our technological society produced signals that could be received by other extraterrestrial civilizations, within a sphere around us with a radius of $\sim…
The hypothesis that Earth was intentionally seeded with life by a preceding extraterrestrial civilization is believed to be currently untestable. However, analysis of the situation where humans themselves embark on seeding other planetary…
The world is passing through a major revolution called the information revolution, in which information and knowledge is becoming available to people in unprecedented amounts wherever and whenever they need it. Those societies which fail to…
Advanced civilizations will likely migrate into rich clusters of galaxies, which host the largest reservoirs of matter bound by gravity against the accelerated cosmic expansion.
As the only known intelligent civilization, human beings are always curious about the existence of other communicating extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations (CETIs). Based on the latest astrophysical information, we carry out Monte…