JUAN MARTIN B. BARREDO,JR.

ASTRONOMY
WHAT IS SETI?
SETI is an acronym for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It is the science
of using telescopes, radio and optical, to search the skies for signals from alien
civilizations.
The idea of SETI began in 1959 with the publication of a paper in the British
journal Nature by Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison. The paper discussed the
possibility of the existence of alien civilizations and how we might be able to detect
them. Their conclusion was that the easiest method of detection would be radio
waves.
Radio waves were chosen because they are capable of traveling the vast distances
between stars and can be generated with reasonable amounts of power. We have
been sending radio waves out into space for more than sixty years. All of our radio,
TV, satellite, and radar signals are currently spreading out throughout the galaxy.
Perhaps they've already been detected by someone.
At the same time as Cocconi and Morrison's paper was published a young
astronomer named Frank Drake was putting together plans for the first search. The
search, named Project Ozma, was conducted in 1960. Over a two week period the
stars Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani were scanned for alien signals. No signals were
found but the search had begun.
In the 30 years since the initial Ozma search many others have been carried out
with more sensitive equipment, over much longer time frames, observing thousands
of other stars. So far no alien signals have been detected but we've really only
begun to scratch the surface. There are an estimated 100 billion stars in the Milky
Way galaxy alone. To complicate matters further there are millions of frequencies
that a signal could be received on. It may be that we just haven't looked in the right
place at the right time yet.

DETECTION METHODS
Swiss astronomers Michael Mayor and Didier Queloz discovered the first exoplanet
in 1995. Since then, the number of verified exoplanets has surpassed 200. There
are a few different methods scientists use when trying to detect extrasolar planets.

Detection Methods:
Direct Evidence:
Images of the planet
Spectra of the planet

Indirect Evidence:
Doppler technique
Transits
Direct evidence of exoplanets is very difficult to obtain. Think about the pictures we
have of Pluto as taken from Earth. The best pictures we have show Pluto as a very
small, round blob. It's hard to take a good quality picture of something that is so far
away. Pluto orbits, on average, about 40 times farther from the Sun than Earth.
That's pretty far. Now think about a planet that is 4 million times farther from our
Sun than we are. You can imagine how tough it is for us to get a picture of
something that far away. Not only are they really far away, but planets are really
dim compared to their parent stars so they're really hard to see. Indirect
observations (such as the Doppler technique, transits, and eclipses) are much more
commonly used when searching for exoplanets.

The Doppler effect on a star

The Doppler technique is a good method for discovering exoplanets. It uses the
Doppler effect to analyze the motion and properties of the star and planet. Both the
planet and the star are orbiting a common center of mass. This means that the star
and the planet gravitationally attract one another, causing them to orbit around a
point of mass central to both bodies. It is like trying to perfectly balance a large
child and a small child on a teeter-totter. If the teeter-totter is suspended in the

center, the larger child will be on the ground, but if you move the larger child very
close to the center, both children will be in perfect balance. If we could rotate the
children around each other, both the large child and the small child orbit a common
center of mass.

SHOW ME THE MATH:

THE DOPPLER EFFECT
The center of mass between two objects
In our solar system, all bodies orbit a common center of mass, including the Sun,
but the Sun is so large in comparison to the planets, the center of mass actually lies
inside the Sun! This makes the Sun seem to wiggle back and forth, and the
spectrum of the Sun shifts back and forth as well. We search for this spectral shift in
other stars to determine if there are one or more planets orbiting that star. When
the star moves toward us, the light emitted has a shorter wavelength, so we say its
spectrum is blue shifted. When it is moving away from us, the light has a longer
wavelength, so we say its spectrum is red shifted. While the Doppler technique is
most widely used for detecting extrasolar planets, it is best suited to look for very
massive planets orbiting close to their parent star. This is because the parent star
will wiggle more with a large planet nearby, thereby creating a larger and more
easily detectable spectral shift. Most planets discovered around other stars have
been very massive and orbit extremely close to their parent star.
Another indirect observational tool is called a transit. This is when a planet crosses
in front of its parent star, temporarily decreasing the star's brightness by a small
amount. This method allows scientists to calculate the density and size of the planet
with respect to the size of the star.

Although these methods give us an idea of size, distance, and orbital period of the
planets, they can't really give us any concrete information about the planet. Direct
observation is a better tool than indirect, but because these planets are so far away
and essentially hidden from view due to how small and dim they are compared to
their parent stars, direct observation is often impossible.