What’s Up with Tabby’s Star? and What Is It With astronomers?

This item was published on the 23rd April, 2018 on the SETI website 

https://www.seti.org/whats-tabbys-star

Tabby’s Star is going through another weird dimming phase and the SETI Institute's Allen Telescope Array is monitoring it for signs of intelligent life.

Tabby's Star

By Gerry Harp

By now you have surely heard that Boyajian’s star, aka Tabby’s star, aka KIC8462852, is going through another weird dimming phase. We do not have a satisfactory explanation for why Boyajian’s star sometimes dims by 20%, and many astronomers are monitoring the star with optical and infrared telescopes, hoping to learn more about this strange behavior. Likewise, the SETI Institute has shifted into gear using our own radio telescope, the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) to monitor Boyajian’s star for the presence of artificial radio transmissions that could reveal a civilization like ours in that system.

Backing up a bit, remember that Boyajian’s star was discovered in data from the Kepler space telescope and shows the most unusual “dimming” of a star ever observed.  From time to time, the light from this star is blocked by some enormous quantity of material moving between the star and our telescopes. But this material is unexpectedly cold and does not give off the infrared radiation expected if it were orbiting the star in a relatively close orbit. This mysterious material is too big and too cold to be explained by a typical orbiting planet, and some scientists have wondered if we could instead be observing a giant structure built by an advanced civilization. For example, a huge megastructure is just what you would need to capture an enormous quantity of stellar energy to power massive engineering projects. Even more interesting, the timing of the present dip suggests that whatever this material is, it is situated at just the right distance from the star to be in the “habitable zone,” where we believe that life like ours could develop as it has on Earth.

So, last Thursday, as soon as we heard Boyajian’s star began another dimming phase, the SETI Institute reacted quickly and pointed our ATA toward that star with hopes of catching a tell-tale signal that might reveal a technological civilization. Using the same methods as in our previous study of the star (http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/0004-637X/825/2/155), we are making very deep and careful observations for signals that appear to be artificial – signals that could be generated by no known natural process.

This story is still unfolding, and it may be weeks before we can definitively state the results of our observations, so stay tuned. I promise that if we find something interesting, we won’t keep it to ourselves.

Not everyone understands what is going on.  Technical papers are fine but they are written for those in the field and not for general members of the public.  This is a problem that, at times, the rather stuffy field of astronomy, tends to forget.  Those organisations receiving public monies ought to really be simplifying things so that "space sails" and "Dyson Spheres" are at least understood.

I can find no update on the SETI site itself but Sky & Telescope , in June, featured an item by Monica Young https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/tabbys-star-dust-complicated/

What’s Going On with Tabby’s Star? It’s Complicated

By: Monica Young

Two new studies — one by a group of high school students — are investigating the strange environment around Tabby's Star.

This illustration depicts an uneven ring of dust orbiting KIC 8462852, also known as Boyajian’s Star or Tabby's Star.
NASA / JPL-Caltech

Once again, KIC 8462852 (aka Tabby's Star or Boyajian's Star) is proving how difficult it is to observe a strange system from afar.

This is the star made famous for potentially hosting alien megastructures. Observations have since firmly ruled out that option, but that aliens were mentioned at all shows just how weird the star is.

Tabby’s Star dips in brightness — sometimes by just 1% and sometimes by up to 20% — over days or weeks, before recovering to its previous luminosity. Yet it's fading too, over longer timescales of years and even decades. Dust explains the short-term dips, but new research shows that the long-term fade could be due to something else entirely.

Tabby's Star: Update

After the discovery of Tabby's Star's strange behavior, astronomers began monitoring the star for variability. When the star's brightness began dipping again last year, observatories around the world joined the monitoring campaign, catching four dips that together are dubbed the "Elsie" family (a play on "LC," short for "light curve"). The other three dips in the family are nicknamed Celeste, Skara Brae, and Angkor; the names are part of the Kickstarter project that funded the observations

Now, two new studies presented at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Denver investigated the nature of the dust that’s causing the short-term dips. Both studies compared the dips in different wavebands. As expected from a previous study, the dips are deeper at bluer wavelengths. That’s because it's dust that’s blocking the star’s light — it scatters away the bluer light while letting the red light pass through. (You can see a similar effect at sunset, when the Sun reddens as its light passes through more atmosphere.)

The dips' wavelength dependence was already known, but the two teams took a closer look at the data. A pair of rising seniors at Thacher School in California, Yao Yin and Alejandro Wilcox, presented results regarding the fourth dip seen in 2017, named “Angkor.” They found that the dust grains causing this dip were similar to dust found in the interstellar medium — tiny grains akin to campfire smoke more so than the dust you find in the corners of your house.

Another team led by Eva Bodman (Arizona State University) found similar results for all four dips. The small grain sizes, she says, mean that the dust was newly created — the star’s radiation would have quickly pushed the smoky dust out of the system, so it can’t last long.

These graphs presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Denver show the recent dips in the brightness of Tabby's Star, dubbed "Elsie" (pink), "Celeste" (yellow), "Skara Brae" (green), and "Angkor" (purple). The solid black line in the plot at left shows that the continuum level also appeared to decrease by about 1% during this time period. At right, the plot shows the colors that Bodman measured by comparing the amount of light arriving at different wavelengths (left vertical axis) and the grain sizes that these colors correspond to (right vertical axis). The grain size appears to vary from dip to dip but remains small, typical of the tiny smog-sized particles found in the space between stars.
Eva Bodman

Bodman also found that the grain size actually changed slightly between dips. “The dust in the cloud isn’t varying in time,” she notes. “We are seeing different parts of the cloud as they cross in front of the star.” That's intriguing — are we seeing the remnants of asteroids of different compositions? Or perhaps a combination of asteroids and comets?

This artist’s concept shows a swarm of comets passing before Tabby's Star, an explanation that hasn't been ruled out just yet.
NASA / JPL-Caltech

Because the small grains won't last long in this system, it's not surprising that both teams found that the dust that’s blocking starlight over the short-term bears no resemblance to whatever’s causing the star to fade over the course of decades. The long-term change appears to be caused by much larger or denser dust grains that can withstand the star’s radiation pressure.

But what is the dust and where is it coming from? That’ll have to be a question for another day. While the action does appear to be happening near the star (rather than in interstellar space or in the outer solar system), neither team could speak to what the dust is made of, nor its origin — the observations just aren’t there yet. A more dramatic dip or simply more long-term observations at many different wavelengths will help clarify the story of Tabby’s Star.

                                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I know: it sounds as boring as a discussion on cricket (to non-cricket players). The problem is that if SETI is looking for signals then it has to focus in on what might be signals and then prove that it is or is not a signal.  The same in this case and I do know there are those who totally dismiss the comet swarm theory.

The problem is that there are astronomers, some very well known ones, who in the past have shown an interest in UFO reports.  When they have heard there is a class of report in which "whatever" is said to be behind these objects exists I have found myself having to explain the best (some of the best) reports and that can be tiring which is why I wrote UFO Contact?.  There is usually a cross-examination in which I have to answer a lot of questions.

It all usually ends with something along the lines of "You get a very good report let me know!"  There are astronomers out there who are well known and out-spoken on the subject of UFOs -in private Carl Sagan was very interested in UFOs but the "let's not rock the pay-cheque boat gets in the way.  

In over 40 years I have met the occasional astronomer -amateur and professional: and I ought to point out that professionals tend to use a lot of data and observations from amateurs -just as zoologists tend to get a lot of their information from the lowly naturalist! Pro or amateur the first thing I tend to hear is: "I thought you'd be some kind of nutter but you seem quite sane!"  I am never sure how to take that.  But the chat starts and the interest is shown and I normally ask why (whoever) doesn't join me on an investigation and see what goes on.  At this suggestion some go pale: "Oh my word no! What would my colleagues say?"

If we -and Science- were really looking for the possibility of extraterrestrial life then the close encounter cases is where they should be looking as well as out in space. Imagine if the Monterrey Bay Aquarium Research Institute or Ocean Exploration Trust took the word of the Victorian and Edwardian scientific elite that nothing was going to live below a certain depth.  If you check out their videos on You Tube you will see the oceanographic discoveries -the new species and so much more including live broadcasts from the sea floor. No marine scientist is going to dismiss the possibility of a large previously unidentified sea creature in Earth's waters -if anyone wants to find such a species they do!

The same applies to SETI/CETI -unless those involved are completely self-obsessed job-worth's then they should not be sticking their noses in the air at the sound of the word "UFO".  

I have maintained for 40 years that any investigation team ought to include an astronomer and, depending on the report, a psychologist.  A team of "UFO believers" will nearly always come up with details that suit their theories and that does not necessarily mean the actual truth. 

If there were the financial backing then several such teams -or one that could be on permanent standby- could be set up.  Astronomy, like Ufology, needs to sort its act out.  It needs to show that it is abiding by the principles of Science, as ufologists should. Astronomers should also try to be less technical and stand-offish because that attitude creates the crazed speculation seen after the New Mexico Solar Observatory was closed and other incidents.

A simplified breakdown on Tabby's Star might also spread less confusion amongst the interested public whose main sources (You Tube and UFO pages) are telling them how NASA, SETI/CETI are covering up on signals received and aliens contacted.

Yes, I know I am talking to myself!

Oumuamua May Not Be What You Were Hoping For

I have read the rather inane comments from former ex-civil servant call staffer at the Ministry of Defence, Nick Pope (who definitely was not in charge of investigating UFOs out in the field or in any way different to the others who preceded him -the office looked nothing like Fox Maulder's!).  He reckons, based on his wide scientific knowledge of anything that will catch media headlines, that Oumuamua could have become activated after SETI scans.  I think, perhaps, Pope has been watching too much Star Trek. Just what "scanning" does he think took place?

The article below, from 20th January this year explains what happened.

No, reporter at the UK Daily Star newspaper, scientists did not believe that this was a yacht flying through space!  "Sail" does not mean that.  Really, they could not Google that?

Let us imagine for one minute that this was a probe out looking for life and it was designed to look "unusual".  Sent out into space rather like our Voyagers or other probes then any advanced civilization would recognise it as being made rather than natural. See my previous posting on the "Golden Record".  It might well be that any extraterrestrial scientists created a probe to pick up signals showing life developing elsewhere.  However, it would want to say "Hello" to advanced civilizations and the easiest way to do so would be to allow your probe to send an information boost to such a civilization: once the probe had received a communications burst aimed at it.

We see something that might be unusual -a probe perhaps- we send a radio signal along the lines of "Welcome to our solar system".  The probe detects this -intelligent life only sends signals after realising it is a probe: return information signal and send originating civilization a message also: "Intelligent signal received" then the probe continues.

When it is said scientists "scanned" Oumuamua they mean it was checked to see if there were any radio or known signals coming from it. None were detected.  This fact is ignored by ufologists and people like Pope: SETI checked for signals -we were told it checked because discovering sdignals would be momentous. No cover-up.

The problem seems to come with people not realising just how vast the solar system, galaxy -universe- is. Astronomers try to use the knowledge gained to identify something -whether FRBs (Fast Radio Bursts) or unusual objects that look and behave oddly.  Oumuamua may not be the first type of object looking like this to pass through our solar system but it is the first time we have detected one.

Read Ćuk's article and get more information that Nick Pope's tabloid or ill educated ufological sources give him.

I would love for Oumuamua to have been a space probe of some kind but the assessment that "it very well could have been" is based on guess-work and from people with a vested financial interest in finding such things (the astronomers involved are backed by a Russian millionaire's SETI attempt).

In truth, and I will keep saying this, we may have the evidence we need in older cases of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  Certainly even a basic study of these reports is showing remarkable trends.

https://www.seti.org/three-surprises-oumuamua

The Three Surprises of 'Oumuamua

In 2017, we discovered the first astronomical object to enter the Solar System from interstellar space.  ‘Oumuamua (Hawaiian for “scout”) was discovered by the Pan-STARRS survey team in Hawaii on October 19th.

Interstellar Aseroid 'Oumuamua

By Matija Ćuk

One of the defining moments in planetary astronomy in 2017 is that this is the year we discovered the first astronomical object to enter the Solar System from interstellar space. Now known as ‘Oumuamua (Hawaiian for “scout”), the object was discovered by the Pan-STARRS survey team in Hawaii on October 19th. Over the next three weeks it was in turn classified as a comet, a long-period asteroid and finally, the first of the new class of interstellar objects. 

As soon as `Oumuamua's true trajectory was confirmed, all available telescopes were used to study it as quickly as possible because it was moving away from Earth at a very high rate of speed. `Oumuamua was actually discovered already on its way out of our solar system, after it passed Earth and could finally be seen in the nighttime sky (when it was on the same side as the sun, it wasn’t visible). Now (late January 2018), `Oumuamua is too faint to see even through the largest telescopes, but its brief passage has given us some rare firsthand information on a distant solar system, and also left us with three surprises. 

Before discussing the surprising aspects of `Oumuamua, here are some of the less unexpected facts of `Oumuamua:

It wasn't moving very fast relative to nearby stars – in fact, it was the Solar System that ran into `Oumuamua, rather than the other way around. This means that the star `Oumuamua originated from orbits the galaxy on an orderly orbit in the galactic disk, like most other local stars. 

`Oumuamua is faint and small. We are not sure how small exactly as we don't know how reflective its surface is, but it's definitely less than a kilometer long. 

Another unremarkable quality of `Oumuamua is its color, which is somewhat red and therefore very similar to that of some of our own comets and distant asteroids.

The first surprise of `Oumuamua is that it is not a comet. `Oumuamua was initially classified as a comet not because of having coma, or a tail (it has neither), but because we expected interstellar objects to be comets. Our giant planets have ejected many, many comets (and many fewer asteroids) into interstellar space during Solar System's formation. We know this because some of them were not quite lost, but were "stuck" in the Oort cloud, a giant swarm of comets orbiting the Sun at very large distances. Combined with the fact that comets are easier to see than asteroids for the same size of the nucleus (comets were known in antiquity and asteroids were discovered only in the 19th century), we expected the first interstellar visitor to be a comet, but we were wrong. 

The second surprise of `Oumuamua is how elongated it is. `Oumuamua's changes in brightness over time imply that it is roughly cigar-shaped, with an axis ratio of 5:1 to 10:1. This is very extreme among asteroids in the Solar System, and would certainly not be expected if we randomly select one body from over hundred thousand known asteroids. If `Oumaumua's shape is typical of the population it comes from, things must be very different in its parent system from how they are here.

The third surprise was the fact that `Oumuamua is tumbling. At first it was noted that 'Oumuamua had a 7 or 8-hour spin period, but different measurements did not quite agree. It turned out that `Oumuamua's spin is not regular, but it executes a complex tumbling motion that shows different views of the body at different times. Some asteroids in our Solar System do tumble, but vast majority do not. We think that this is because internal motions of material inside asteroids (which are often just piles of rocks and sand loosely held together by gravity) damp this tumbling relatively quickly (astronomically speaking), leaving only asteroids that suffered recent collisions as tumblers. `Oumuamua spent many millions of years in the interstellar void, so it should have damped its tumbling, but it apparently did not. This made planetary scientists conclude that `Oumuamua is likely a solid chunk of rock or metal, without any internal structure or lose material.

So why is `Oumuamua the way it is? We do not know, but we do have some ideas. My own favorite hypothesis is that `Oumuamua is a piece of a planet destroyed by tides as it was passing close to a red dwarf star in a binary system. The idea is that the planet formed around the red dwarf's companion, but its orbit was destabilized and the planet swung past the red dwarf, about to be hurled into interstellar space. Red dwarf stars can be surprisingly dense, some of them are the size of Jupiter, but with a hundred times larger mass. This makes their tides very strong, and tides can disrupt bodies that come too close (like Jupiter disrupted comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994). If a planet can be shredded into trillions of fragments which are then ejected into interstellar space, such catastrophic events could produce more interstellar objects than regular ejections of comets and asteroids by planets.

So, what do we do now? Well, we wait for more interstellar objects to see what they are like, and we probably won't have to wait too long. A new telescope, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is under construction in Chile, and it should become operational in 2022. LSST will be a robotic telescope that will take a complete scan of the whole sky down to very faint objects every three days, so it will very literally catch anything that moves. If `Oumuamua is not a complete fluke, LSST should detect about one such object every year. 

`Oumuamua is the first and almost certainly won't be the last interstellar visitor we have discovered. And we are anxiously awaiting the next visitor.

Ufology Is GOING to be Exposed

 From 25th to 28th January,1978, three police officers were sat in a car.  They were out to catch a group of well known poachers who had exhibited violent tendencies toward a countryside warden and a colleague.

The area they were watching was in the Devils' Garden which is an area of meadow land near to Frodsham, Cheshire.  Asked about those very cold nights one officer replied that apart from one shooting star there was no sign of movement and not a torch flash anywhere -several times they got out of the patrol car to "stretch their legs and answer the call of nature".

There was the occasional sound of a cow.  That was it.

If you know your British ufology you will know the significance of 27th January, 1978 and Frodsham.

the question is did the alleged UFO incident take place and if so, how did three alert policemen see nothing?

Update Oumuamua was on a reconnaissance?

I thought I;d see what NASA has to say about the Oumuamua findings.  Apparently no one bothered telling them and the last mention was in September.
https://www.nasa.gov/mediacast/gravity-assist-planetary-defense-and-oumuamua-with-kelly-fast

Thank the Zeta Reticulans for NASA
_________________________________________________________________

Before you read this let me explain for the 100th time that the image shown is not a photograph of Oumuamua -I see it stated over and over online that it is such.  It is something an artist has come up with nothing more.  We have not seen Oumuamua up that close.

For me the shape was no problem since we still know relatively little about what goes on "out there". If you are a geologist -even someone who has chipped away at a block of coal- then you will know that a tap at the right point will split rock/coal.  How it splits up depends on stress lines but long pieces are not that extraordinary.  So you imagine a millennia old object being hit by smaller or larger objects as it travels from beyond our solar system -maybe en on entering it.  Nothing shocking or odd.

There were some questions that needed answering but Science takes its time. Then we read that Oumuamua had: an “unexpected boost in speed and shift in trajectory as it passes through the inner solar system”  That makes you pay attention.

More after this item:

Mystery interstellar asteroid Oumuamua 'could be gigantic alien solar sail sent to look for signs of life'

Patrick Grafton-Green,Evening Standard 19 hours ago 

The first known interstellar object to travel through our solar system could be a gigantic alien solar sail sent to look for signs of life, according to a new study.

The mysterious asteroid Oumuamua has been analysed by astronomers from the Harvard Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics (CfA) after it was found to be unexpectedly speeding up.

NASA​ said earlier this year observations from their Hubble Space Telescope confirmed the object had an “unexpected boost in speed and shift in trajectory as it passes through the inner solar system”.

Scientists have now concluded that the asteroid “might be a lightsail of artificial origin” using solar radiation to propel itself forward.

The study said: “Considering an artificial origin, one possibility is that Oumuamua is a lightsail, floating in interstellar space as a debris from an advanced technological equipment.

“Alternatively, a more exotic scenario is that Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilisation.”

Professor Abraham Loeb, who carried out the study with Shmuel Bialy, told Universe Today: “Oumuamua could be an active piece of alien technology that came to explore our Solar System, the same way we hope to explore Alpha Centauri using Starshot and similar technologies.

“The alternative is to imagine that Oumuamua was on a reconnaissance mission.”

Before he died, Professor Stephen Hawking said the most likely shape for an interstellar spacecraft would be a "cigar or needle" as this would “minimise friction and damage from interstellar gas and dust”.

Researchers have previously said the object is likely to be the same size and shape as London's Gherkin building.
                                             ***********************************

Here is something for the conspiracy fraternity. We do have solar observatories with powerful instrumentation which is why we get such spectacular solar images. How long would it have taken to have those re-focussed based on the fact that Oumuamua might be an alien probe. If you look at what was happening at some solar observatories (New Mexico was closed down due to criminal activity by a staffer) in September were they refocussing?

To be honest I doubt solar observatories were being used to observe Oumuamua.  Humans tend to pontificate and argue until...too late!  If this was an alien probe then humanity screwed up. As soon as it was detected there were things we could have done to get better views (military satellites are up there but some general would be stamping his foot and yelling "NO! We gotta watch the Russkies!!").

If this was a probe it might be some civilizations version of Voyager but intended to be observed, contacted or encountered.  Was anyone focussing attention on possible transmissions of various kinds from Oumuamua?  

There are so many questions but if this research is right then, yeah, we done screwed up.

Private Groups To Carry Out SETI/CETI?

Does this mean anything to you?

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00010000001100000001000
00001100001100000010000
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00000000001100110000000
00000011000100001100000
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00100001011101001011011
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It's the binary code and it is much talked about by some people who have very little background information on it.  I'll let Wikipedia do its job here:

The Arecibo message is a 1974 interstellar radio message carrying basic information about humanity and Earth sent to globular star cluster M13 in the hope that extraterrestrial intelligence might receive and decipher it. The message was broadcast into space a single time via frequency modulated radio waves at a ceremony to mark the remodeling of the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico on 16 November 1974. The message was aimed at the current location of M13 some 25,000 light years away because M13 was a large and close collection of stars that was available in the sky at the time and place of the ceremony. The message consisted of 1,679 binary digits, approximately 210 bytes, transmitted at a frequency of 2,380 MHz and modulated by shifting the frequency by 10 Hz, with a power of 450  kW. The "ones" and "zeros" were transmitted by frequency shifting at the rate of 10 bits per second. The total broadcast was less than three minutes.

The number 1,679 was chosen because it is a semiprime (the product of two prime numbers), to be arranged rectangularly as 73 rows by 23 columns. The alternative arrangement, 23 rows by 73 columns, produces an unintelligible set of characters (as do all other X/Y formats). The message forms the image shown on the right, or its inverse, when translated into graphics, characters, and spaces.

Dr. Frank Drake, then at Cornell University and creator of the Drake equation, wrote the message with help from Carl Sagan, among others. The message consists of seven parts that encode the following (from the top down):

1. The numbers one (1) to ten (10) (white)

1. The atomic numbers of the elements hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus, which make up deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) (purple)

1. The formulas for the sugars and bases in the nucleotides of DNA (green)

1. The number of nucleotides in DNA, and a graphic of the double helix structure of DNA (white & blue)

1. A graphic figure of a human, the dimension (physical height) of an average man, and the human population of Earth (red, blue/white, & white respectively)

1. A graphic of the Solar System indicating which of the planets the message is coming from (yellow)

1. A graphic of the Arecibo radio telescope and the dimension (the physical diameter) of the transmitting antenna dish (purple, white, & blue)

1. The numbers one (1) to ten (10) (white)

1. The atomic numbers of the elements hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus, which make up deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) (purple)

1. The formulas for the sugars and bases in the nucleotides of DNA (green)

1. The number of nucleotides in DNA, and a graphic of the double helix structure of DNA (white & blue)

1. A graphic figure of a human, the dimension (physical height) of an average man, and the human population of Earth (red, blue/white, & white respectively)

1. A graphic of the Solar System indicating which of the planets the message is coming from (yellow)

1. A graphic of the Arecibo radio telescope and the dimension (the physical diameter) of the transmitting antenna dish (purple, white, & blue)

Since it will take nearly 25,000 years for the message to reach its intended destination (and an additional 25,000 years for any reply), the Arecibo message is viewed as a demonstration of human technological achievement, rather than a real attempt to enter into a conversation with extraterrestrials. In fact, the core of M13, to which the message was aimed, will no longer be in that location when the message arrives. However, as the proper motion of M13 is small, the message will still arrive near the center of the cluster. According to the Cornell News press release of November 12, 1999, the real purpose of the message was not to make contact but to demonstrate the capabilities of newly installed equipment

This is how the image looks -the coloured version is not the original but produced to isolate the various elements.

Here is the enlarged colour version.

And here is an image of M13

This image, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope, shows the core of the great globular cluster Messier 13 and provides an extraordinarily clear view of the hundreds of thousands of stars in the cluster, one of the brightest and best known in the sky. Just 25 000 light-years away and about 145 light-years in diameter, Messier 13 has drawn the eye since its discovery by Edmund Halley, the noted British astronomer, in 1714. The cluster lies in the constellation of Hercules and is so bright that under the right conditions it is even visible to the unaided eye. As Halley wrote: “This is but a little Patch, but it shews it self to the naked Eye, when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent.” Messier 13 was the target of a symbolic Arecibo radio telescope message that was sent in 1974, communicating humanity’s existence to possible extraterrestrial intelligences. However, more recent studies suggest that planets are very rare in the dense environments of globular clusters. This picture was created from images taken with the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope. Data through a blue filter (F435W) are coloured blue, data through a red filter (F625W) are coloured green and near-infrared data (through the F814W filter) are coloured red. The exposure times are 1480 s, 380 s and 567 s respectively and the field of view is about 2.5 arcminutes across.

ESA/Hubble and NASA - http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1011a/

The idea of sending a message to somewhere that will take 25,000 years and 25,000 years more to get a response is inane.  The whole idea I understand but surely it would have then been better to send the signal out -even randomly- into other areas of space?

Our attempts at trying to contact extraterrestrial life are all rather hit-and-miss because we then have this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record

The Voyager Golden Records are two phonograph records that were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. The records contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or for future humans, who may find them. The records are considered as a sort of a time capsule.

Although neither Voyager spacecraft is heading toward any particular star, Voyager 1 will pass within 1.6 light-years' distance of the star Gliese 445, currently in the constellation Camelopardalis, in about 40,000 years.

Carl Sagan noted that "The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space, but the launching of this 'bottle' into the cosmic 'ocean' says something very hopeful about life on this planet."

Now look at the Nearest Stars as shown below.  Why has no one attempted to send the binary code message, or any other signal, towards those stars?  As discussed in UFO Contact? our radio and TV signals have now.  Since the first mass radio signals in 1922/1923 over 100 light years of space (in a sphere shape) have been spanned by our radio signals.  Our TV signals  have reached as far out as 74 light years away -50 light years away the TV series The Twilight Zone is just arriving.

A song broadcast today would take four years to reach Alpha Centauri -our closest neighbour at 4.3 light years.

So why are we not broadcasting to our nearest neighbours?  Could it be just a case of "creating jobs for life" or is it fear of what might be "out there"?

It may just be that Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and Communication with Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (CETI) needs to be carried out by private organisations as well as the established bodies who have, frankly, never been that clear -"We may have a signal....oh it wasn't a signal" and even, after decades, they still argue over the "WOW!" signal.

Those multi-billionairs who want to get into the history books?  Here's where you get in!

addenda- Life is too short to waste.

I just checked and found out that my last post had a chunk of text vanish.  Typical. Here we go again.

It seems as though my blogging is going to drop dramatically. There are more than enough people visiting this blog and I note some of the things I am posting are being used elsewhere without credit being given -that is the internet.

However, there has not been one single comment or any feed-back from postings or otherwise. If not for the views counter I would think that I was posting to myself.

That is pointless.

Any cooperation has also come privately and from outside the UK.  Why are British ufologists scared of cooperating on work that would benefit ufology as a whole and progress serious research?

I have decided that it is far better to continue research and writing rather than just blog to 'no one' and wait to see if and when anyone does get in touch.  Life is too short to waste.

What is really needed is funding so that this work can be carried out properly and an investigation re-opened where it is needed.  A small team.  the problem is that no one out there backs UFO research of any type in Europe.  This means that, while I may be able to filter the fakes away I cannot afford the time to pursue this full time and the funds for doing so do not exist.

So, blog when I get the time.

Breaking News: Did We Just Discover 234 Alien Civilizations?

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Technical and scientific based journal looking at what has become known as "UFOs" -including natural phenomena some not yet scientifically understood. This is NOT a sensationalist publication but will contain fully referenced articles and reports to help promote further serious study.

If I Ran NASA.....