Is ET calling home?

[little_monkey]

Consider that the info comes from foxnews, take it with a grain of salt, but who knows...

The recent discovery of Gliese 581g, an alien planet in the habitable zone of another star, has been an exciting development for scientists probing the galaxy for signs of extraterrestrial life. At least one claim of a possible signal from the planet has already surfaced – and been met with harsh skepticism among the science community.

Following the Sept. 29 announcement of the discovery of Gliese 581g, astronomer Ragbir Bhathal, a scientist at the University of Western Sydney, claimed to have detected a suspicious pulse of light nearly two years ago, that came from the same area of the galaxy as the location of Gliese 581g, according to the U.K.'s Daily Mail online.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/1...latestnews

[chasm]

Oh no, a weird pulse of light. That automatically means life, right? Of course it does...

[R-e-n-n-a-t]

It could be anything. Personally I'm hoping it's mostly vacant. As awesome as it would be to meet intelligent aliens (and shock humanity by dating one, lol) it's not worth a probable intergalactic nuclear war. Human's aren't tolerant, even if other organisms would be; we'd nuke the s**t out of intelligent life in no time flat. An empty planet, on the other hand, can just be used to solve the population problem for a few more thousand years.

[Minimalist]

Anything that appears on FOX is almost certainly wrong.

[Ashendant]

It could be anything. Personally I'm hoping it's mostly vacant. As awesome as it would be to meet intelligent aliens (and shock humanity by dating one, lol) it's not worth a probable intergalactic nuclear war. Human's aren't tolerant, even if other organisms would be; we'd nuke the s**t out of intelligent life in no time flat. An empty planet, on the other hand, can just be used to solve the population problem for a few more thousand years.

Aren't you being a bit overdramatic you are implying that humans have no empathy, considering all those environmentalist nutties who concern life in general more important than human life

[Skipper]

It could be anything. Personally I'm hoping it's mostly vacant. As awesome as it would be to meet intelligent aliens (and shock humanity by dating one, lol) it's not worth a probable intergalactic nuclear war. Human's aren't tolerant, even if other organisms would be; we'd nuke the s**t out of intelligent life in no time flat. An empty planet, on the other hand, can just be used to solve the population problem for a few more thousand years.

Bit paranoid aren't we?

[Anomalocaris]

It could be anything. Personally I'm hoping it's mostly vacant. As awesome as it would be to meet intelligent aliens (and shock humanity by dating one, lol) it's not worth a probable intergalactic nuclear war. Human's aren't tolerant, even if other organisms would be; we'd nuke the s**t out of intelligent life in no time flat. An empty planet, on the other hand, can just be used to solve the population problem for a few more thousand years.

Given that we've had nuclear weapons for only 65 years or so, and the universe had 6-7 billion years to get an earlier lineage of evolution going somewhere else before our ~4.0 billion year lineage started on earth, I suspect the odds of us running into someone intelligent, technological, and we can shove around is vanishingly small. Most likely we will be obliterated without a trace should we attempt to make ourselves inconvenient for any intelligent, technological species we encounter.

[orogenicman]

Other astronomers are questioning whether Gliese 581g actually exists. It seems others aren't finding the same (planetary) signal in the data. So its still an open question.