Top scientist in GRAVE alien warning – NASA mission may have doomed us all
Top scientist in GRAVE alien warning – NASA mission may have doomed us all
AN ASTRONOMER who helped NASA in the search for alien life fears we’ve made a grave mistake.
Frank Drake designed a map that would help aliens find Earth which was blasted into space on a NASA craft.
It charts our position in relation to 14 pulsars, the fast-spinning corpses of exploded stars which last for millions of years.
Should aliens ever find the NASA probes that carry the map, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, they would be able to find our sun and therefore Earth.
But now scientists fear that whatever finds the probes could be hostile – and they’ll have perfect instructions on how to find us.
And given recent discoveries about how many planets there are – and how many can support life – that’s terrifying.
"All the people I dealt with were optimists, and they thought the ETs would be friendly," Mr Drake said.
"Nobody thought, even for a few seconds, about whether this might be a dangerous thing to do."
Voyager 1 has already passed into interstellar space – further than anything in history.
While Voyager 2 is passing through the heliosheath, after which it too will be in interstellar space.
When they were launched nobody thought about not making contact, Kathryn Denning of York University in Canada told National Geographic.
She said: "Back when Drake did the pulsar map… there hadn't been very much debate over the pros and cons of contact with extraterrestrial intelligence."
"Now, however, there is a major debate among scientists and a variety of stakeholders about the wisdom of doing anything other than listening."
Thankfully, if there are hostile aliens, there’s a good chance that they’ll miss the Voyager probes and their onboard maps completely.
But Dr Stephen Hawking has warned that if we did meet aliens – from a planet like Gliese 832c – we should keep quiet.
"One day, we might receive a signal from a planet like this, but we should be wary of answering back," he said.
"Meeting an advanced civilisation could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn’t turn out so well."
He said they could be "rapacious marauders roaming the cosmos in search of resources to plunder, and planets to conquer and colonise".
Top scientist in GRAVE alien warning – NASA mission may have doomed us all
AN ASTRONOMER who helped NASA in the search for alien life fears we’ve made a grave mistake.
Frank Drake designed a map that would help aliens find Earth which was blasted into space on a NASA craft.
It charts our position in relation to 14 pulsars, the fast-spinning corpses of exploded stars which last for millions of years.
Should aliens ever find the NASA probes that carry the map, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, they would be able to find our sun and therefore Earth.
But now scientists fear that whatever finds the probes could be hostile – and they’ll have perfect instructions on how to find us.
And given recent discoveries about how many planets there are – and how many can support life – that’s terrifying.
"All the people I dealt with were optimists, and they thought the ETs would be friendly," Mr Drake said.
"Nobody thought, even for a few seconds, about whether this might be a dangerous thing to do."
Voyager 1 has already passed into interstellar space – further than anything in history.
While Voyager 2 is passing through the heliosheath, after which it too will be in interstellar space.
When they were launched nobody thought about not making contact, Kathryn Denning of York University in Canada told National Geographic.
She said: "Back when Drake did the pulsar map… there hadn't been very much debate over the pros and cons of contact with extraterrestrial intelligence."
"Now, however, there is a major debate among scientists and a variety of stakeholders about the wisdom of doing anything other than listening."
Thankfully, if there are hostile aliens, there’s a good chance that they’ll miss the Voyager probes and their onboard maps completely.
But Dr Stephen Hawking has warned that if we did meet aliens – from a planet like Gliese 832c – we should keep quiet.
"One day, we might receive a signal from a planet like this, but we should be wary of answering back," he said.
"Meeting an advanced civilisation could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn’t turn out so well."
He said they could be "rapacious marauders roaming the cosmos in search of resources to plunder, and planets to conquer and colonise".
