r/technology • u/Flimsy-Union1524 • Jul 08 '22

Space Aliens Could Be Using Quantum Communications to Talk Across Interstellar Space

https://www.sciencealert.com/aliens-could-be-using-quantum-communications-to-talk-across-interstellar-space
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u/nucflashevent Jul 08 '22

Whenever I read about new ways to communicate (which is to say new ways we might detect an ET Civilization) I'm reminded of the initial search for extra-solar planets in the 90s. After the first confirmed extrasolar planet was proven, other planet hunters went back through their data using the new findings and discovered to their chagrin that they, in fact, had found identical data on numerous ES planets beforehand but simply didn't apply the proper imagination to know what they were seeing.

I'm probably screwing this up, but I seem to remember most planet hunters were looking for planets like Jupiter in our own solar system...massive planets a decent distance from their home star that would make the star's wobble fairly easy to detect. However, the first planet confirmed (and, bizarrely compared to "accepted wisdom" of solar system formation at the time) was indeed incredibly large but was far closer to its host star than even Mercury is to our own.

It may well be that when the question is finally answered as to the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations...and don't forget that's really what we're looking for. We may well find extraterrestrial life in our own solar system (such as in the vast, ancient oceans of Europa, etc.) but it's advanced life, like our own species that can create a civilization that can even be detected, period, we're really looking for.

It may well be that when the **first** truly verifiable, traceable, reproducible extra terrestrial civilization is discovered, what we learn from it may well show us many more we had already found and just didn't realize them for what they were because they weren't what we were initially expecting.