Broca's Brain

by Carl Sagan

  This was recognized by Stoney in a remarkable paper called “Of Atmospheres upon Planets and Satellites.” He deduced that there should be no lunar atmosphere because of the very rapid escape to space of gases from the low lunar gravity, or any large build-up of the lightest gases, hydrogen and helium, on Earth. He believed that there was no water vapor in the Martian atmosphere and that Mars’ atmosphere and caps were probably carbon dioxide. He implied that hydrogen and helium were to be expected on Jupiter, and that Triton, the largest moon of Neptune, might have an atmosphere. Each of these conclusions is in accord with present-day findings or opinions. He also concluded that Titan should be airless, a prediction with which some modern theorists agree—although Titan seems to have another view of the matter (see Chapter 13).

  In this period there are also a few breath-taking speculations, such as one by the Rev. J. M. Bacon that it would be a good idea to perform astronomical observations from high altitudes—from, for example, a free balloon. He suggested that there would be at least two advantages: better seeing and ultraviolet spectroscopy. Goddard later made similar proposals for rocket-launched observatories (Chapter 18).

  Hermann Vogel had previously found, by eyeball spectroscopy, an absorption band at 6183 Å in the body of Saturn. Subsequently the International Color Photo Company of Chicago made photographic plates, which were so good that wavelengths as long as H Alpha in the red could be detected for a fifth-magnitude star. This new emulsion was used at Yerkes, and Hale reported that there was no sign of the 6183 Å band for the rings of Saturn. The band is now known to be at 6190 Å and is 6v3 of methane.

  Another reaction to Percival Lowell’s writings can be gleaned from the address of James Keeler at the dedication of the Yerkes Observatory:

  It is to be regretted that the habitability of the planets, a subject of which astronomers profess to know little, has been chosen as a theme for exploitation by the romancer, to whom the step from habitability to inhabitants is a very short one. The result of his ingenuity is that fact and fancy become inextricably tangled in the mind of the layman, who learns to regard communication with the inhabitants of Mars as a project deserving serious consideration (for which he may even wish to give money to scientific societies), and who does not know that it is condemned as a vagary by the very men whose labors have excited the imagination of the novelist. When he is made to understand the true state of our knowledge of these subjects, he is much disappointed and feels a certain resentment towards science, as if it had imposed upon him. Science is not responsible for these erroneous ideas, which, having no solid basis, gradually die out and are forgotten.

  The address of Simon Newcomb on this occasion contains some remarks which apply generally, if a little idealistically, to the scientific endeavor:

  Is the man thus moved into the exploration of nature by an unconquerable passion more to be envied or pitied? In no other pursuit does such certainty come to him who deserves it No life is so enjoyable as that whose energies are devoted to following out the inborn impulses of one’s nature. The investigator of truth is little subject to the disappointments which await the ambitious man in other fields of activity. It is pleasant to be one of a brotherhood extending over the world in which no rivalry exists except that which comes out of trying to do better work than anyone else, while mutual admiration stifles jealousy … As the great captain of industry is amoved by the love of wealth and the politician by the love of power, so the astronomer is moved by the love of knowledge for its own sake and not for the sake of its application. Yet he is proud to know that his science has been worth more to mankind than it has cost … He feels that man does not live by bread alone. If it is not more than bread to know the place we occupy in the universe, it is certainly something that we should place not far behind the means of subsistence.

  AFTER READING through the publications of astronomers three-quarters of a century ago, I felt an irresistible temptation to imagine the 150th Anniversary Meeting of the American Astronomical Society—or whatever name it will have metamorphosed into by then—and guess how our present endeavors will be viewed.

  In examining the late-nineteenth-century literature, we are amused at some of the debates on sunspots, and impressed that the Zeeman effect was not considered a laboratory curiosity but something to which astronomers should devote considerable attention. These two threads intertwined, as if prefigured, a few years later in G. E. Hale’s discovery of large magnetic field strengths in sunspots.

  Likewise we find innumerable papers in which the existence of a stellar evolution is assumed but its nature remains hidden; in which the Kelvin-Helmholtz gravitational contraction was considered the only possible stellar energy source, and nuclear energy remained entirely unanticipated. But at the same time, and sometimes in the same volume of the Astrophysical Journal, there is acknowledgment of curious work being done on radioactivity by a man named Becquerel in France. Here again we see the two apparently unrelated threads moving through our few-years snapshot of late-nineteenth-century astronomy and destined to intertwine forty years later.

  There are many related examples—for instance, in the interpretation of series spectra of nonhydrogenic elements obtained at the telescope and pursued in the laboratory. New physics and new astronomy were the complementary sides of the emerging science of astrophysics.

  Accordingly, it is difficult not to wonder how many of the deepest present debates—for example, on the nature of quasars, or the properties of black holes, or the emission geometry of pulsars—must await an intertwining with new developments in physics. If the experience of seventy-five years ago is any guide, there will already be people today who dimly guess which physics will join with which astronomy. And a few years later, the connection will be considered obvious.

  We also see in the nineteenth-century material a number of cases where the observational methods or their interpretations are clearly in default by present standards. Planetary periods deduced to ten significant figures by the comparison of two drawings made by different people of features we now know to be unreal to begin with is one of the worst examples. But there are many others, including a plethora of “double-star measurements” of widely separated objects, which are mainly physically unconnected stars; a fascination with pressure and other effects on the frequencies of spectral lines when no one is paying any attention to curve of growth analysis; and acrimonious debates on the presence or absence of some substance based solely upon naked-eye spectroscopy.

  Also curious is the sparseness of the physics in late-Victorian astrophysics. Reasonably sophisticated physics is almost exclusively the province of geometrical and physical optics, the photographic process, and celestial mechanics. To make theories of stellar evolution based on stellar spectra without wondering much about the dependence of excitation and ionization on temperature, or attempting to calculate the subsurface temperature of the Moon without ever solving Fourier’s equation of heat conduction seems to me to be less than quaint. In seeing elaborate empirical representations of laboratory spectra, the modern reader becomes impatient for Bohr and Schrödinger and their successors to come along and develop quantum mechanics.

  I wonder how many of our present debates and most celebrated theories will appear, from the vantage point of the year 2049, marked by shoddy observations, indifferent intellectual powers or inadequate physical insight. I have the sense that we are today more self-critical than scientists were in 1899; that because of the larger population of astronomers, we check each other’s results more often; and that, in part because of the existence of organizations like the American Astronomical Society, the standards of exchange and discussion of results have risen significantly. I hope our colleagues of 2049 will agree.

  The major advance between 1899 and 1974 must be considered technological. But in 1899 the world’s largest refractor had been built. It is still the world’s largest refractor. A reflector of 100-inch aperture was beginning to be considered. We have improved on that aperture onl
y by a factor of two in the intervening years. But what would our colleagues of 1899—living after Hertz but before Marconi—have made of the Arecibo Observatory, or the Very Large Array, or Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI)? Or checking out the debate on the period of rotation of Mercury by radar Doppler spectroscopy? Or testing the nature of the lunar surface by returning some of it to Earth? Or pursuing the problem of the nature and habitability of Mars by orbiting it for a year and returning 7,200 photographs of it, each of higher quality than the best 1899 photographs of the Moon? Or landing on the planet with imaging systems, microbiology experimentation, seismometers and gas chromatograph/mass spectrometers, which did not even vaguely exist in 1899? Or testing cosmological models by orbital ultraviolet spectroscopy of interstellar deuterium—when neither the models to be tested nor the existence of the atom that tests it were known in 1899, much less the technique of observation?

  It is clear that in the past seventy-five years American and world astronomy has moved enormously beyond even the most romantic speculations of the late-Victorian astronomers. And in the next seventy-five years? It is possible to make pedestrian predictions. We will have completely examined the electromagnetic spectrum from rather short gamma rays to rather long radio waves. We will have sent unmanned spacecraft to all of the planets and most of the satellites in the solar system. We will have launched spacecraft into the Sun to do experimental stellar structure, beginning perhaps—because of the low temperatures—with the sunspots. Hale would have appreciated that. I think it possible that seventy-five years from now, we will have launched subrelativistic spacecraft—traveling at about 0.1 the speed of light—to the nearby stars. Among other benefits, such missions would permit direct examination of the interstellar medium and give us a longer baseline for VLBI than many are thinking of today. We will have to invent some new superlative to succeed “very”—perhaps “ultra.” The nature of pulsars, quasars and black holes should by then be well in hand, as well as the answers to some of the deepest cosmological questions. It is even possible that we will have opened up a regular communications channel with civilizations on planets of other stars, and that the cutting edge of astronomy as well as many other sciences will come from a kind of Encyclopaedia Galactica, transmitted at very high bit rates to some immense array of radio telescopes.

  But in reading the astronomy of seventy-five years ago, I think it likely that, except for interstellar contact, these achievements, while interesting, will be considered rather old-fashioned astronomy, and that the real frontiers and the fundamental excitement of the science will be in areas that depend on new physics and new technology, which we can today at best dimly glimpse.

  CHAPTER 22

  THE QUEST FOR

  EXTRATERRESTRIAL

  INTELLIGENCE

  Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence … Someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence, certainly never.

  FRANZ KAFKA,

  Parables

  THROUGH ALL of our history we have pondered the stars and mused whether humanity is unique or if, somewhere else in the dark of the night sky, there are other beings who contemplate and wonder as we do, fellow thinkers in the cosmos. Such beings might view themselves and the universe differently. Somewhere else there might be very exotic biologies and technologies and societies. In a cosmic setting vast and old beyond ordinary human understanding, we are a little lonely; and we ponder the ultimate significance, if any, of our tiny but exquisite blue planet. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is the search for a generally acceptable cosmic context for the human species. In the deepest sense, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is a search for ourselves.

  In the last few years—in one-millionth the lifetime of our species on this planet—we have achieved an extraordinary technological capability which enables us to seek out unimaginably distant civilizations even if they are no more advanced than we. That capability is called radio astronomy and involves single radio telescopes, collections or arrays of radio telescopes, sensitive radio detectors, advanced computers for processing received data, and the imagination and skill of dedicated scientists. Radio astronomy has in the last decade opened a new window on the physical universe. It may also, if we are wise enough to make the effort, cast a profound light on the biological universe.

  Some scientists working on the question of extraterrestrial intelligence, myself among them, have attempted to estimate the number of advanced technical civilizations—defined operationally as societies capable of radio astronomy—in the Milky Way Galaxy. Such estimates are little better than guesses. They require assigning numerical values to quantities such as the numbers and ages of stars; the abundance of planetary systems and the likelihood of the origin of life, which we know less well; and the probability of the evolution of intelligent life and the lifetime of technical civilizations, about which we know very little indeed.

  When we do the arithmetic, the sorts of numbers we come up with are, characteristically, around a million technical civilizations. A million civilizations is a breath-takingly large number, and it is exhilarating to imagine the diversity, lifestyles and commerce of those million worlds. But the Milky Way Galaxy contains some 250 billion stars, and even with a million civilizations, less than one star in 200,000 would have a planet inhabited by an advanced civilization. Since we have little idea which stars are likely candidates, we will have to examine a very large number of them. Such considerations suggest that the quest for extraterrestrial intelligence may require a significant effort.

  Despite claims about ancient astronauts and unidentified flying objects, there is no firm evidence for past visitations of the Earth by other civilizations (see Chapters 5 and 6). We are restricted to remote signaling and, of the long-distance techniques available to our technology, radio is by far the best. Radio telescopes are relatively inexpensive; radio signals travel at the speed of light, faster than which nothing can go; and the use of radio for communication is not a short-sighted or anthropocentric activity. Radio represents a large part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and any technical civilization anywhere in the Galaxy will have discovered radio early—just as in the last few centuries we have explored the entire electromagnetic spectrum from short gamma rays to very long radio waves. Advanced civilizations might very well use some other means of communication with their peers. But if they wish to communicate with backward or emerging civilizations, there are only a few obvious methods, the chief of which is radio.

  The first serious attempt to listen for possible radio signals from other civilizations was carried out at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Greenbank, West Virginia, in 1959 and 1960. It was organized by Frank Drake, now at Cornell University, and was called Project Ozma, after the princess of the Land of Oz, a place very exotic, very distant and very difficult to reach, Drake examined two nearby stars, Epsilon Eridani and Tau Ceti, for a few weeks with negative results. Positive results would have been astonishing because as we have seen, even rather optimistic estimates of the number of technical civilizations in the Galaxy imply that several hundred thousand stars must be examined in order to achieve success by random stellar selection.

  Since Project Ozma, there have been six or eight other such programs, all at a rather modest level, in the United States, Canada and the Soviet Union. All results have been negative. The total number of individual stars examined to date in this way is less than a thousand. We have performed something like one tenth of one percent of the required effort.

  However, there are signs that much more serious efforts may be mustered in the reasonably near future. All the observing programs to date have involved quite tiny amounts of time on large telescopes, or when large amounts of time have been committed, only very small radio telescopes could be used. A comprehensive examination of the problem was recently made by a NASA committee chaired by Philip Morrison of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The comm
ittee identified a wide range of options, including new (and expensive) giant ground-based and spaceborne radio telescopes. It also pointed out that major progress can be made at modest cost by the development of more sensitive radio receivers and of ingenious computerized data-processing systems. In the Soviet Union there is a state commission devoted to organizing a search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and the large RATAN-600 radio telescope in the Caucasus, recently completed, is devoted part-time to this effort. Hand in hand with the recent spectacular advances in radio technology, there has been a dramatic increase in the scientific and public respectability of the entire subject of extraterrestrial life. A clear sign of the new attitude is the Viking missions to Mars, which are to a significant extent dedicated to the search for life on another planet.

  But along with the burgeoning dedication to a serious search, a slightly negative note has emerged which is nevertheless very interesting. A few scientists have lately asked a curious question: If extraterrestrial intelligence is abundant, why have we not already seen its manifestations? Think of the advances by our own technical civilization in the past ten thousand years and imagine such advances continued over millions or billions of years more. If only a tiny fraction of advanced civilizations are millions or billions of years more advanced than ours, why have they not produced artifacts, devices or even industrial pollution of such magnitude that we would have detected it? Why have they not restructured the entire Galaxy for their convenience?