Astronomers search proof of tech constructed by aliens

An worldwide workforce of scientists led by a outstanding Harvard astronomer introduced a brand new initiative Monday to search for proof of know-how constructed by extraterrestrial civilizations.

Called the Galileo Project, it envisages the creation of a worldwide community of medium-sized telescopes, cameras and computer systems to research unidentified flying objects, and has to date been funded with $1.75 million from personal donors.

Given current analysis exhibiting the prevalence of Earth-like planets all through the galaxy, “We can no longer ignore the possibility that technological civilizations predated us,” Professor Avi Loeb instructed reporters at a information convention.

“The impact of any discovery of extraterrestrial technology on science, our technology, and on our entire world view, would be enormous,” he added in a press release.

The challenge contains researchers from Harvard, Princeton, Cambridge, Caltech and the University of Stockholm.

It was introduced a month after the Pentagon launched a report about unidentified aerial phenomena, which acknowledged that their nature was unclear.

“What we see in our sky is not something that politicians or military personnel should interpret, because they were not trained as scientists, it’s for the science community to figure out,” stated Loeb, including that he hoped to extend the challenge’s funding tenfold.

Apart from learning UFOs, the Galileo Project needs to research objects that go to our solar system from interstellar space, and looking for alien satellites that is likely to be probing Earth.

Loeb refers to such analysis as a brand new department of astronomy he calls “space archaeology,” meant to enhance the prevailing subject of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), which primarily probes for alien radio alerts.

These endeavors would require collaborations with present and future astronomical surveys, together with from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile that’s due to go surfing in 2023 and is eagerly awaited by the scientific community.

The 59-year-old Israeli-American has revealed a whole lot of pioneering papers and collaborated with the late Stephen Hawking, however created controversy when he advised an interstellar object that briefly visited our system in 2017 might have been an alien probe crusing on solar winds.

He laid out his arguments in scientific papers and the e book “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth,” which positioned him at odds with many within the astronomy neighborhood.

The new challenge is accordingly named after Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, who was punished when he supplied key proof for the Earth not being on the heart of the universe.

The challenge’s co-founder Frank Laukien, a visiting scholar at Harvard’s chemistry and chemical biology division, declared himself the “resident skeptic.”

But he stated that, relatively than dismissing the concepts outright, it was essential to “agnostically record and interpret the data according to the scientific method.”

© 2021 AFP