Intelligent Life in the Universe (Phys345 Term Project)

Intelligent Life in the Universe 

(Phys345 Term Project)

The following article is research about Intelligent Life in the Universe.

Note: This is my PHYS 345 term project.

Contents

1. Chapter 1 Introduction
    1.1. General Information

    1.2. History
2. Chapter 2 Observational Aspects

    2.1. Travel Between the Stars

    2.2. Directly Search

    2.3. Indirectly Search (Radio Communication)
3. Chapter 3 Theoretical Aspects (Understanding)

    3.1. How Many Inhabited Worlds?
4. Chapter 4 Discussion & Conclusion
5. Chapter 5 Last Section (References)

Chapter 1 Introduction

My term project topic is from Chapter 15 and 15-3 Intelligent Life in the Universe.

General Information

In the Universe, there are countless planets where intelligent or unintelligent life forms may live. Nonetheless, humans can not search or visit every planet because some of them are far away more than 1 AU or 1 light-year or even 1 parsec. For example, there is an almost twin planet to Earth, named Kepler-22b and its distance to Earth is 620 light-years. Therefore, for now, we don’t have a technology that helps us to visit Kepler-22b. However, this does not mean that we are alone in the whole universe. Even if we can’t visit outside of our solar system or see planets, which are so far away from us, there is a possibility that there are some intelligent or unintelligent life forms. Some intelligent life forms even visit us and observe us without our knowledge.

History

When intelligent life forms visited Earth with their highly technological transport vehicles, these vehicles are called UFOs, unidentified flying object. In human history, there are a lot of things that people try to tell there are aliens.

First of all, according to the history.com website, businessman Kenneth Arnold who is the first person to see UFOs see UFOs in 1947 near Mount Rainier in Washington while flying. This case is called “Flying Saucers”.

In the same year, a mysterious 200-yard-long wreckage was founded near an Army airfield in Roswell, New Mexico by W.W. “Mac” Brazel, nevertheless, papers said, “it was the remains of a flying saucer.”. Even the USA army stated that this was just a weather balloon. This case is called “The Roswell UFO Incident”.

Image 1: July 8, 1947, issue of the Roswell Daily Record,
announcing the "capture" of a "flying saucer".

In the 1950s dummies with latex “skin” and aluminum “bones” that can belong to aliens fell from the sky across New Mexico and were hurriedly picked up by military vehicles. 50 years later, the military said the Roswell is the one of top-secret atomic project part, which is Project Mogul.

People see more and more UFOs during the Cold War and some of them call them  Soviet aircraft but others call them ETH (extraterrestrial hypothesis). The investigation is called Project Sign, however, in a year, this investigation was replaced by Project Blue Book.

The Central Intelligence Agency prompted the U.S. government to establish an expert panel, which was headed by H.P. Robertson and included other scientists, to investigate the phenomenon, which is that in 1952 in Washington DC, the number of seeing UFOs reaches its peak. Their conclusions were that most UFOs incidents can be astronomical and meteorological incidents, there was no obvious threat, and there was no evidence to support ETH.

Image 2: This is an image from E.T., which is a movie in 1982.

Two years later a second committee, which was set up in 1966 at the request of the Air Force, released its results as the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects—also known as the Condon Report, named for Edward U. Condon, the physicist who headed the investigation. However, just as in the Robertson Panel, scientists could not find any evidence about UFOs but commonplace phenomena in the reports. Therefore, in 1969, Project Blue Book was removed.

Moreover, there is a famous place about UFOs, which is called Area 51. This place is in Nevada. There is a lot of gossip about whether the USA can capture some intelligent life forms and they use their knowledge, and they make experiments on them. Also, there are a lot of victims who see UFOs in the place.

Image 3: This is an screen shot (ss) that I take. I search Area 51 in google maps.

    

Image 4: This is an image of J. Allen Hynek.

          Moreover, J.Allen Hynek, who is taking a role in the Sign, Grudge and Blue Book Project and is also a scientist, engineer, and astronomer in Evanston and Illinois Northwestern University, can conclude that the most reliable UFOs reports can be evidence of ETH and creates CUFOS, which is the center of UFOs research.

Chapter 2 Observational Aspects

Travel Between the Stars

As it is mentioned at the beginning of the article, humans don’t have a technology that allows them to visit planets that are far away more than 1 parsec or 1 light-year or even 1 AU for now. They can only observe planets in some intervals which their current technology provides. According to Seeds, M. A., & Backman, D. E. (2018) Astro3: Introductory astronomy, “the fastest human device ever launched, the New Horizons probe, will take about 90,000 years to travel the distance to the nearest star.” (page 361). And also the book claims that traveling between such distances is difficult not only for humans but also for aliens, therefore, scientist have never found any evidence that aliens visit Earth.

Scientists also continue their researchs about intelligent life not only direct search but also indirectly search.

Directly Search

Scientists believe that life forms can be detected by telescopes because they produce variety of biosignatures. Even they thinks that in one of the Mars’ meteorite called ALH84001 there could be fossilized bacteria-like life forms.

Image 5: Martian meteorite ALH84001 from wikipedia

In 2005, NASA claimed that they could found life forms in Mars. Two scientists from Nasa who are Carol Stoker ve Larry Lemke argued that there is methane signatures in Mars’s atmosphere and this signature matches the methane production of some forms of primitive life on Earth. Nonetheless, NASA did not continue this topic in media. In November 2011, the Mars Science Laboratory, which NASA started, landed the Curiosity travelling in Mars.

According to Gaia hypothesis, in a planet having strong life form population, there should be chemical instability in its atmosphere and this can be easily noticed by spectroscopy.

In August 2012, astronomers at the University of Copenhagen reported that there is a sugar molecule, glycolaldehyde, around the protostar binary IRAS 16293-2422, located 400 light-years from Earth. The glycolaldehyde is needed to ribonucleic acid which functionally similar to DNA, or RNA.

Indirectly Search (Radio Communication)

Traveling between such distances is difficult but we can communicate with intelligent life forms via radio signals.

Image 6: The VLA radio telescopes in New Mexico.

Credit: Hajor Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 2.0).

We prefer to use radio signals because they are electromagnetic waves and travel at the speed of light. According to Seeds, M. A., & Backman, D. E. (2018) Astro3: Introductory astronomy, astronomers broadcasted a simple message via the Arecibo radio telescope. 

Moreover, we can observe electromagnetic interstellar communication from civilizations on other worlds by projects like SETI.

Besides these, according to wikipedia.org website, in 2017 September, there can be potential for primitive life forms like microorganisms in other planets and moons in our solar system. 

Chapter 3 Theoretical Aspects (Understanding)

How Many Inhabited Worlds?

We can estimate the total number of communicative civilizations in our Galaxy by using the Drake equation.  Frank Drake creates this equation.

Image 7: I take it from our course book (ASTRO 3_ Introductory Astronomy)(page 364).

N_c = The number of technological civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy with which we can communicate.

N = The number of stars in our Galaxy.

f_P = The fraction of stars that have planets.

n_HZ = The average number of planets in each Solar System suitably placed in the habitable zone (according to the book, “A region around a star within which planets have temperatures that permit the existence of liquid water on their surfaces.”(page 361 )).

f_L = The fraction of suitable planets on which life begins.

f_I = The fraction of those planets where life evolved to intelligence.

f_S = The fraction of a star’s life during which an intelligent species is communicative.

Image 8: I take it from our course book (ASTRO 3_ Introductory Astronomy)(page 365).

It is estimated the total number of galaxies in observable universe based on the observation from Hubble Space Telescope is between 125 and 250 billion.

Moreover, while scientists look at the planets, they look at their distance from a star. Because if the planets have a suitable atmosphere, it allows liquid water to persist on its surface. These planets can be exoplanet, which are also called extrasolar planet. They are planets outside the Solar System and orbiting another star.

They also try to find water on the planets because they believe if there is a water, there would be life forms. However,  the habitable zone concept is not yet certain.

Image 9: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1673/whats-out-there-the-exoplanet-sky-so-far/#/2

Image 10: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1675/life-in-the-universe-what-are-the-odds/

Chapter 4 Discussion & Conclusion

People always wonder whether there is life on other planets which are not only in our solar system but also in other systems. If there is life, they ask whether they visit Earth or not. In history, there are so many cases which can be fake or real. People say they see UFOs but governments say they are only new planes or weather balloons. Some scientists make deep research on some projects like Project Blue Book. However, when traveling between huge distances is considered, believing UFOs becomes difficult because for any life form, this journey is difficult. But this doesn’t mean that we can’t communicate with them. We use radio signals to communicate with them because they travel with light-year. We also use our telescope to observe planets and by observing planets we hope to find intelligent life form. Moreover, we can use some calculations to estimate how many planets can have a habitable zone by using the Drake equation. Scientists also take into account of the habitable zone concept and the possibility of water on the planet during their research.

Chapter 5 Last Section (References)

Billings, L. (2016, August 30). Have we detected an alien signal? it's highly doubtful. Scientific American Blog Network. Retrieved May 8, 2022, from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/have-we-detected-an-alien-signal-it-s-highly-doubtful/

History.com Editors. (2009, October 27). History of ufos. History.com. Retrieved May 8, 2022, from https://www.history.com/topics/paranormal/history-of-ufos

Karakülah, O., Yazarı, S., Osman çocuğun ölüm ile imtihanı 92 yılının mayıs ayında Antalya'da başladı. Sonuçta doğduğu anda ölümle son bulacak bir geri sayım saatinin düğmesine basılmıştı. Fakat altı yaşında bir gün ablası sevgilisi ile yalnız kalmak için onu tek başına sinema salo, Atacan, J., FilmLoverss, Şahinöz, S., Günay, Ö. L., Çalışır, G., & Isim*. (2016, July 28). E.T. the extra-terrestrial hakkında mutlaka Bilinmesi Gereken 15 Detay! Filmloverss. Retrieved May 8, 2022, from https://filmloverss.com/e-t-the-extra-terrestrial-hakkinda-mutlaka-bilinmesi-gereken-15-detay/

NASA. (2021, April 26). Life in the universe: What are the odds? NASA. Retrieved May 30, 2022, from https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1675/life-in-the-universe-what-are-the-odds/

NASA. (2021, February 3). What's out there? the exoplanet sky so far. NASA. Retrieved May 30, 2022, from https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1673/whats-out-there-the-exoplanet-sky-so-far/#/2

NASA. (2021, February 3). What's out there? the exoplanet sky so far. NASA. Retrieved May 30, 2022, from https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1673/whats-out-there-the-exoplanet-sky-so-far/#/2

Seeds, M. A., & Backman, D. E. (2018). Astro3: Introductory astronomy. Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning.

Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, March 13). Ötegezegen. Wikipedia. Retrieved May 30, 2022, from https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tegezegen

Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, March 16). J. Allen Hynek. Wikipedia. Retrieved May 8, 2022, from https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Allen_Hynek

Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, March 17). Roswell Kazası. Wikipedia. Retrieved May 8, 2022, from https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_Kazas%C4%B1

 Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, May 20). UFO. Wikipedia. Retrieved May 30, 2022, from https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO

Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, May 29). Extraterrestrial life. Wikipedia. Retrieved May 29, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterrestrial_life#Scientific_search

Wikimedia Foundation. (n.d.). Kepler-22b. Wikipedia. Retrieved May 8, 2022, from https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler-22b#:~:text=Kepler%2D22b%2C%20NASA'n%C4%B1n,%C3%B6zelli%C4%9Fi%20bir%20dev%20d%C3%BCnya%20olabilmesidir.&text=Ke%C5%9Ffi%2C%205%20Aral%C4%B1k%202011%20tarihinde%20duyurulmu%C5%9Ftur