A new hub at the University of St Andrews is working to coordinate global expertise to better prepare humanity for a potential foreign contact . The work of the chemical group will build upon the current protocols but go beyond them , make them as realistic as possible and quick to be deployed in the consequence of receiving a content from an extraterrestrial civilization .
Contact protocol were drawn up by the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence ( SETI ) community in 1989 , and they werelast revised in 2010 . They detail how scientists should go about confirm a possible signal , but the post - detection part is very limited . Andrecent enquiry , as well as real - lifespan experience with a sour signal , suggests that information about a detective work might spread before astronomers have clip to unequivocally confirm it . Also , these protocols are not enforceable , which is another issue .
“ Science fiction is flooded with explorations of the shock on human society following breakthrough of , and even run into with , life-time or word elsewhere , ” Dr John Elliott , the coordinator for the hub aver in astatement . “ But we need to go beyond thinking about the encroachment on world . We ask to align our adept cognition not only for appraise the grounds but also for consider the human social reply , as our understanding progresses and what we know and what we do n’t know is communicated . And the metre to do this is now . ”
The University of St Andrew ’s SETI Post - Detection Hub is tasked to work on the insurance gap of the current communications protocol , as well as considering how science communicating connect to the search for ( and possible discovery of ) alien life ought to be done responsibly . software of the enquiry to establish such protocol might even go beyond SETI itself .
“ Scanning signaling of assumed extraterrestrial extraction for structures of language and attach substance is an luxuriant and fourth dimension - consume process during which our knowledge will be advance in many step as we learn ‘ Extra - Terrestrial ’ , ” Elliot suggested .
Last month , a composition on the subject ofthe geopolitical implicationsof such a detection called for foil and receptiveness about the SETI program . This is something that seems to be in - build in the protocol , but could for certain do good from a best - practice glide path .
“ What really encounter when you get a SETI detecting is that the medium straightaway bug out calling you up . There is no silence in this workplace . unremarkably , within a few 60 minutes , everyone would know , ” Dr Seth Shostak , senior astronomer at the SETI Institute , antecedently told IFLScience referring toa famous incident in 1997 .
Arecent documentary(available in the UK and from January in the US ) tried to suppose how mankind might react to the fateful first contact . Education of scientist , the public , and politician on how best this can be done is likely to be very important .
“ Will we ever get a message from E.T. ? We do n’t know,”explained Elliot . “We also do n’t know when this is going to happen . But we do cognise that we can not afford to be badly prepared – scientifically , socially , and politically rudderless – for an case that could turn into realism as early as tomorrow and which we can not afford to mismanage . ”
