"To find newcomers, we must put ourselves in their place"

A group of astronomers suggested a new way of searching for intelligent extraterrestrial life, which seems quite obvious, if for a moment it's thought about. We need to become aliens ourselves. Or at least n leave yourself in their place and think about exactly where they can see us.

The discovery of living beings, in the development of intelligence, most likely superior to our own, will literally change the world. But finding them, as it turned out, is very difficult even with the use of the latest scientific equipment of our era.

Project Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence ( Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence , SETI) has been hunting for them since the 1960s. However, during this period of time, scientists were able to scan for the presence of radio signals only a tiny section of the sky. Astrobiologists offered at one time many different ways, through which we could narrow down the search.

One of the proposals, for example, is the tracking of rich globular star clusters. Or you can direct our search tools straight to the galactic center where increased concentration of stars increases the possibility of finding habitable worlds or, more importantly, where a really very intelligent life could establish its beacons.

If we try to look at the question from the other side, we must first try to understand where the cosmic extraterrestrial life could see us. If "there" someone, just like us, tries to find habitable worlds, then where do they need to look for a world 70 percent covered with water, with a nitrogen-rich atmosphere, wrapped around a G-class star at a distance of 150 million kilometers, where is it between the center of the Milky Way and its rim?

If our space neighbors can see the Earth when it passes the Sun, then, according to Renee Heller and Ralph Pudritsa, published in the scientific journal Astrobiology, there is a possibility that extraterrestrial life has already been found. And if it is, then maybe it is already sending us signals.

That's why Heller and Pudrits believe that we should direct our ears to the "transit zone" of the Earth - a piece of space containing about 100,000 potential stars.

"One hundred thousand stars" sounds very impressive, but believe me, it's nothing compared to the 100 billion stars that are inside the Milky Way. However, 100,000 is exactly the figure that shows the capabilities of our most modern radio telescopes.

Last year, Russian billionaire Yuri Milner launched the $ 100 million Breakthrough Listen project, whose main task is to search for intelligent extraterrestrial life. In general, this means that the SETI project has a worthy assistant.

The question of finding aliens has always contained many unresolved mysteries and pitfalls. First, we really do not know if there are any such aliens at all.

Even if intelligent life exists in other worlds, it is not necessary (probably even unlikely), it uses telescopes and radio waves to study stars, as we do.

Many philosophers, and SETI employees, are confident that any extraterrestrial civilization, which we, perhaps, sooner or later will still find, is very likely to be very ancient.

In other words, the technological level of intelligent life is likely to exceed ours by a few tens, hundreds, and perhaps even thousands of generations.

If we approach this issue from this perspective, then the desire to finally find extraterrestrial life becomes very much controversial. Rather, even short-sighted and unreasonable. On the other hand, perhaps, the aliens themselves do not want anyone to find them. In general, there can be many assumptions.

The search for something new, the desire to discover secrets and solve riddles, to seek, learn and enrich our knowledge - all this is inherent in us by nature. We just can not resist trying to answer all these questions.

And if close monitoring of the transit zone of the Earth will increase the chances of the end of our cosmic loneliness and help open an extraterrestrial intelligent life that is technologically comparable to us, then this attempt is worth the costs that it invests.