Are we alone? Scientists harness star to ‘REACH OUT’ to alien life for ‘help and advice’

As part of the 2018 Sonar festival in Spain, scientists have sent a message 12 light years away towards Luyten’s star that could be heard by aliens in 12 years time.

Festival director Richard Robles said: “Sonar Calling GJ273b arises from the innate human need to communicate and connect.

“It also attempts to find an answer to a question asked by civilisations throughout history: are we alone in the universe?

“Given the largely negative impact of humanity on our planet, perhaps this is the best time to reach out to hopefully superior extraterrestrial intelligence to solicit help and advice.”

If aliens are available to respond to the outgoing message, a response could be heard as soon as 2042.

There are two planets orbiting Luyten’s star – one of which is thought to be habitable.

Douglas Vakoch, the president of Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI), added: “To me, the big success of the project will come if, 25 years from now, there’s someone who remembers to look for a response.

“If we could accomplish that, that would be a radical shift of perspective.”

Sending messages into outer space is something that great minds such as Steven Hawking have warned against.

The hailed physicist has previously stated that if a message was received by aliens, humans should be “wary” of sending a reply.

However, Mr Vakoch dismissed fears that sending messages to aliens could result in dangerous consequences.

He declared: “It’s really hard to imagine a scenario in which a civilisation around Luyten’s star could have the capacity to come to Earth and threaten us, and yet they’re not able to pick up our leakage radiation.”

As Earth awaits a reply from potential aliens around Luyten’s star, China is confident it will be the first to make contact with alien life thanks to the world’s largest radio dish which can detect signals from even the deepest parts of space.

Last year, Beijing cemented itself as a space exploration powerhouse by firing its space laboratory Tiangong 2 into low Earth orbit, becoming only the third nation, after the US and Russia, to independently get people into space.

The nation has also has had dozens of suspected-paranormal encounters including recent claims of a UFO sighting over the Great Wall of China.

Now the emboldened ‘space superpower’ has vowed it will be the first to make contact with alien life pouring billions of pounds into space exploration and the world’s largest radio dish to detect signals from other galaxies.

Speaking about the Tiangong 2 mission President Xi Jinping, said that the project would “enable China to take larger and further steps in space exploration, and make new contributions to building up China as a space power”.

The 500-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is almost twice as wide as the America’s Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, making it the largest in the world, if not the universe.

Liu Cixin, one China’s top researchers into alien life, described the dish as looking “like something out of science fiction”.

But Mr Liu, who has written a great deal about the risks of the first contact, warns that the “appearance of this Other” might be imminent and could result in our extinction.

In one of his books, he said: “Perhaps in ten thousand years, the starry sky that humankind gazes upon will remain empty and silent.

“But perhaps tomorrow we’ll wake up and find an alien spaceship the size of the Moon parked in orbit.”

Other leading experts into alien life including astrophysicist Andrew Siemion, the director of the Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) research centre at Berkley University have also been impressed by FAST.

Radio transmissions are forbidden near the dish in a bid to stop human sources interfering with any signals coming from alien sources.

China’s latest five-year plan pledges to increase spending on research and development to £913billion ($1.2trillion)—at least 2.5 per cent of its gross domestic product – with deep Space exploration at the forefront.

The plan was adopted in March 2016 and will see it through to 2020 and this latest radio observatory is not going to be China’s last as the country reportedly plans to put one on the dark side of the moon.