HOW TO FIND ALIEN LIFE: KEEP WATCHING THE SUNS
by James
Dunn, guest contributor. [April 27, 2007]
[WeeklyUniverse.com] I propose that the drive to survive is common to intelligent beings.
All stars eventually die out -- or at least they should. If we maintain
our technological course and manage to survive despite our self-destructive
tendencies, then when our sun dims we will devise methods to re-energize
it to maintain our lives and that of the plants and animals.
I do not think we are unique
and alone in the Universe. I believe intelligent beings have lived
many millions of years before ourselves. So that the light reaching
us now, which began its journey millions of years ago, might be from stars
that should have died out -- but did not!
The problem
with listening for aliens talking to us (i.e., the SETI
project), is that we, as an intelligent species, have only lived but
an instant. For us to be listening just as an alien message arrives
is such a long shot that we probably won't get the message intended for
us. We have a much better chance finding conditions that an
alien species might have maintained for billions of years.
I propose
that astrophysicists should try to find abnormal stars. Stars that
should be dead, but are not. Stars that are non-characteristic of
the statistical norm. For instance, a star that lies far from a natural
birthing place for stars, where statistically there should have been more
matter to create such a star. A star that is brighter or has a different
spectrum profile than anticipated.
If an
alien civilization wished to survive and had the technology, they'd maintain
the longevity of their sun to support the diversity of life on their planet(s).
My proposed
sun-based search for alien life requires the combined talents of nuclear
physicists and astrophysicists. I'm assuming that naturally decaying
stars have certain observable amplitudes for different frequencies of emitted
light for each size and class of star. Perhaps the rotation rate
of the EM field polar plane for a particular photon is predictable, and
deviating stars are noted during routine data collection?
If a star
has the components of an old decaying star, and is producing the light
of a younger star, then maybe we can deduce the kinds of circumstances
that would produce such an anomaly. Maybe there is some nuclear process
that can only be produced artificially, and which has unique observable
properties?
Much data
has already been collected (such as by Very
Large Array in Socorro, New Mexico). It need only be processed.
We already have in our databases the EM spectrums of millions of stars.
Unfortunately, I imagine that cost factors prevent many photon qualities
from being detected and cataloged.
A Chicago
research team has been investigating a third form of nuclear power -- Total
Annihilation -- for many years. This team is trying to build a complex
waveform to interfere with the nuclear bonds of atoms. The energy
to be released by Total Annihilation is expected to be many trillions of
times greater than that of fission or fusion. Its method differs,
but its energy is akin to that of supercollider antimatter experiments.
An example
given was (quoted, as best as I recall, around 2000): "Take a half ounce
of any material -- water, nuclear waste, free-floating hydrogen from space.
Apply Total Annihilation to that material, and the energy released is enough
to loft a large spacecraft from the Earth, put it in orbit, run all its
systems and circle the sun, and then land gently back on Earth."
With such
technology, could not one cause the fusion byproducts of the sun -- or
any alien star -- to release enough energy to sustain its energy output?
And such a star's energy output would likely have some unusual qualities,
as its energy would not entirely be due to fission or fusion.
Given
that over 90% of the Universe is composed of dark
matter, in the older part of the Universe, perhaps many ancient alien
civilizations are self-contained and thus unobservable. And given
that we currently cannot detect self-contained planets, our only hope for
extraterrestrial "contact" may be that some alien civilizations produce
observable artificial phenomena.
I suspect
that some alien civilizations have indeed chosen to artificially maintain
their stars' output, so as to maintain a particular environmental relationship
needed by a specific species, not necessarily their own.
Copyright 2007 by James Dunn
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