ET will phone us 'within 20 years'

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Earth will hear from ET within 20 years, a leading expert claims.

But we will have to search through the estimated 100billion stars in the Milky Way to find his radio signal.

And, as aliens could be up to 1,000 light years away, it will be centuries before they hear our reply.

The predictions come from Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence in California.

He used a 1961 formula based on factors such as the number of stars with planets, how many of those planets might support life and the likelihood of those life-forms evolving to an advanced stage.

Dr Shostak concluded there could be between 10,000 and 1million transmitting aliens in the galaxy. It will take two decades to scan every possible source of radio signals.

That also takes into account the proposed launch of powerful new telescopes such as Seti's one-hectare Allen Telescope Array as well as expected improvements in computer chip processing power.

Dr Shostak has long been a believer in finding alien life but once said: 'You're not going to see them in person. To go from here to the nearest star is a project requiring a 100,000-year trip.

'And that's longer than you're going to want to sit there eating airline food.'

His latest claims, published in New Scientist, also overlook an important factor, his critics claim.

Another leading alien hunter Paul Shuch said: 'Predicting the date, the decade, or even the century of contact is another matter because the "other end" of the communication link is completely out of our hands.'

 

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