Lewis Dartnell, Professor of Science Communication, has been quoted in an article by The Guardian about how the world would react if a message from a distant galaxy was detected.
The article discusses whether the scientific community and the wider world is sufficiently prepared for the event of a signal being detected and looks at the efforts of Dr John Elliott at the University of St Andrews to bring international researchers together so that they are ready to analyse any signals.
Speaking to The Guardian, Professor Dartnell notes that the team at St Andrews is doing important work but stresses that the timescale for any communication would likely be on the scale of centuries, as any intelligent aliens are likely to be hundreds of even thousands of light years away.
He said: “Even if we were to receive a signal tomorrow, we would have plenty of breathing space to assemble an international team of diverse experts to attempt to decipher the meaning of the message, and carefully consider how the Earth should respond, and even if we should.
“The bigger concern is to establish some form of international agreement to prevent capable individuals or private corporations from responding independently — before a consensus has formed on whether it is safe to respond at all, and what we would want to say as one planet.”
Read the full article on The Guardian’s website.
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