Cosmos Episode 12: Encyclopedia Galactica Part 5 of 7

Are there alien intelligences? How could we communicate with them? What about UFOs? The answers to these questions take us to Egypt to decode ancient hieroglyphics, to the largest radio telescope on Earth and, in the Spaceship of the Imagination, to visit other civilizations in space.

Dr. Sagan answers questions such as: "What is the life span of a planetary civilization?" and "Will we one day hook up with a network of civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy?"

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Cosmos
• Sagan
• Encyclopedia
• Galactica
• Episode

[jeevesbond]

I hope that, if aliens did give us a copy of the Encyclopedia Galactica, that we could look up the Earth and find the words:

'Mostly harmless.'

That's assuming aliens have a British sense of humour. ;)

[vwr0527]

Aliens haven't detected signs of technical civilizations from here. We have had high technology (detectable from space) for only a hundred years. It would need to travel for much longer than 100 years to reach a pretty good radius in terms of interstellar scales.

[zzzIdividedbyzerozzz]

Also note, that the strength of our singles dissipate with distance. So I wonder if anyone out there simply toss out anything they pick up from us as nothing more then background noise.

[Bryoz]

@jeevesbond presumably they'd have the revised version then ;)

[gday1111111]

4:17 onwards is genuinely moving.

[TheAmorri]

@gamehero77

congratz d00d lolol

[Rachielizaboo]

@vwr0527 Even if a signal did travel far enough to reach intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy, and by extraordinary luck was actually intercepted by it, would it retain enough viability to communicate anything meaningful? Would a signal like the one in Dr. Sagan's example transmitting a message as simple as prime numbers even be viable 100 light years out, or 1000? We seem no closer to conquering the inverse-square law of electromagnetic propagation than we were when Cosmos originally aired.

[artvandelay13]

@jeevesbond "Don't Panic" would be reassuring too :)

[48Donbray]

We could be the first.....but we could the thousandth! Imagine that. The Universe is around 14 Billion years old, so I think it could be VERY possible that there have been MANY civilizations out there that may have rose and fallen, and may still be around. It's amazing that some people think that there is no life on other planets. We ARE the universe, and I think that life is prevalent where ever it's given the opportunity. Life will find a way if given the chance. Intelligent? Maybe not

[NorrYtt]

Someone was first. Just read YouTube posts! :D

[Jcorp67]

Never mind he mentioned the possibility.