Consumating's Question of the Week

Big Crunch or Endless Expansion: What is your theory on the fate of the universe?

From what I've read it will continue expanding forever. The "big crunchers" are in retreat.
Eventually things will expand so much that you wouldn't be able to see anything in the sky (if the Earth still existed by then - which it won't).

(From Consumating)

New way to look for intelligent life within 30 light years

Originally published at Twixel.net. You can comment here or there.

If there are clever aliens out there, we may learn about them

Washington - Is there intelligent life on other planets? If so, what do space aliens watch on TV?

Astronomers plan to search 1 000 nearby stars for television broadcasts and other signals that could indicate extraterrestrial life, the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics said today.

The project, planned for early 2008, would use a new radio telescope to search for radio traffic similar to that found on Earth.

Current efforts to find extraterrestrial life look for messages deliberately beamed across space - an approach that would miss any civilisation that does not advertise its existence as Earth’s does.

The new effort would search a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum used on Earth for more mundane purposes - radar, television and FM radio broadcasts.

“We may pick up spurious signals from people that never meant for us to hear them and get an inkling that something’s going on,” said David Aguilar, director of communications at the centre.

The project will be able to detect Earth-like radio signals within a distance of 30 light-years, which encompasses about 1 000 stars.

The project will be formally presented at a conference of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle on Wednesday. - Reuters

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Very Cool!

http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3616600