It would be 2041, at the earliest, by the time we get a reply.Īnd, GJ 273b is one of the closer exoplanets (a planet that orbits a star other than the sun).
There’s considerable distance between us and, for instance, GJ 273b: 12.36 light-years to be precise.Īt that distance, it will take a dozen years for our message to arrive and then another dozen for us to receive the return message. Humans eager to make friends in other star systems might be disappointed to learn that any developing relationship will likely resemble a phenomenally slow pen pal correspondence, rather than one conducted at the speed of text or email - never mind light. How do we even communicate with an alien species, especially one that may not use language in a form we can recognize and decipher? Will a meeting prompt mass hysteria? And what about strange alien diseases? And how might it affect our views about religion? USC Dornsife scholars weigh in on what to expect when we first meet extraterrestrials. The prospect of meeting another civilization raises questions both captivating and concerning. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful telescope ever sent into the cosmos, is scheduled to launch this winter and will enable scientists to examine thousands of distant planets for “biosignatures” - clues that a planet’s atmosphere has been influenced by life.Ĭoncerns over decades of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) - known more commonly as unidentified flying objects (UFOs) - in our atmosphere, many sighted by military personnel, have recently prompted politicians on both sides of the aisle to push for an official agency to handle UAP investigations.īut are we prepared for an encounter of the “Third Kind”? Space transmissions hoping to attract an alien response have been going out since 1962, when Soviet scientists s ent a message in Morse code to the planet Venus in the first attempt at intergalactic communication.Įven if our calls generate no response, it seems increasingly likely humanity will stumble upon life somewhere in the universe one of these days. Of course, a cosmic call might come much sooner. If it lands on intelligent alien ears once it arrives in about a decade, E.T.
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Its message, sent by the alien-hunting group Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence International, contained instructions on how to understand Earthling math, music and time. In 2017, a powerful radio transmission was aimed at exoplanet GJ 273b, thought to be able to support life. Twenty years from now we might get a call from aliens.