Scientist warns of signals from outer space
Bailes says aliens who could contact Earth would be more advanced than humans
The scientist leading Australia’s efforts to find signals from intelligent life on other planets warned yesterday we should think twice before replying.
Professor Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University in Melbourne spoke of his excitement at learning that he was in charge of part of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation’s 100-million-US-dollar search for alien life, financed by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner.
But when asked what he would do if he actually found a signal sent by aliens, Bailes paused.
“I think we should think very carefully before we reply to a signal received from outer space,” he said. Bailes said aliens who could transmit such a powerful signal that it could reach Earth over tens of thousands of light years would have to be far more advanced than us.
“The history of weak civilisations contacting more advanced civilisations is not a happy one,” he said.
Bailes is in charge of the multi-million dollar contract Australia has signed with the Breakthrough Prize Foundation project using the radio telescope at Parkes, 356km west of Sydney.
The initiative has been described as the biggest ever scientific research projects looking for signs of intelligent life, and will cover 10 times more area of sky than previous programmes. Milner described it on Monday as bringing a “Silicon Valley approach to the search for intelligent life” in an initiative backed by British scientist Stephen Hawking.
His project has bought a quarter of the time that the Parkes radio telescope scans the universe.
Bailes said sophisticated computers will have to be installed at Parkes that can detect patterns or likely signals. Unlike the movies, there will be no one watching screens for alien signals from space.
“These computers will have to sort through a billion samples a second trying to find a pattern or what could be a signal.” The Parkes radio telescope, one of the largest on Earth, has a proud history of space exploration. It was first in the world to receive transmissions in 1969 from Apollo 11 showing Neil Armstrong setting foot on the Moon.
Bailes is in charge of the multimillion dollar contract Australia has signed with the Breakthrough Prize Foundation project using the radio telescope at Parkes, 356km west of Sydney.