Relative Likelihood of Success in the Searches for Primitive versus Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life

Abstract

We estimate the relative likelihood of success in the searches for primitive versus intelligent life on other planets. Taking into account the larger search volume for detectable artificial electromagnetic signals, we conclude that both searches should be performed concurrently, albeit with significantly more funding dedicated to primitive life. Based on the current federal funding allocated to the search for biosignatures, our analysis suggests that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) may merit a federal funding level of at least $\$10$ million per year, assuming that the average lifetime of technological species exceeds a millennium.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in Astrobiology; 21 pages; 0 figures

References in corpus (57)

• Seven temperate terrestrial planets around the nearby ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1
• A terrestrial planet candidate in a temperate orbit around Proxima Centauri
• Temperate Earth-sized planets transiting a nearby ultracool dwarf star
• Exoplanet Biosignatures: A Review of Remotely Detectable Signs of Life
• The Effect of a Strong Stellar Flare on the Atmospheric Chemistry of an Earth-like Planet Orbiting an M dwarf
• A temperate rocky super-Earth transiting a nearby cool star
• Exoplanet Biosignatures: Understanding Oxygen as a Biosignature in the Context of Its Environment
• Exploring Exoplanet Populations with NASA's Kepler Mission
• How to Characterize Habitable Worlds and Signs of Life
• Observing the Atmospheres of Known Temperate Earth-sized Planets with JWST
• Exoplanet Biosignatures: A Framework for Their Assessment
• The Origin of RNA Precursors on Exoplanets
• Exoplanet Biosignatures: Observational Prospects
• Bayesian analysis of the astrobiological implications of life's early emergence on Earth
• The First Naked-Eye Superflare Detected from Proxima Centauri
• The Ĝ Infrared Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations with Large Energy Supplies. III. The Reddest Extended Sources in WISE
• The Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life: Target Selection of Nearby Stars and Galaxies
• The Ĝ Infrared Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations with Large Energy Supplies. I. Background and Justification
• False negatives for remote life detection on ocean-bearing planets: Lessons from the early Earth
• Transit Lightcurve Signatures of Artificial Objects
• The Ĝ Infrared Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations with Large Energy Supplies. II. Framework, Strategy, and First Result
• The Ĝ Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations with Large Energy Supplies. IV. The Signatures and Information Content of Transiting Megastructures
• Risks for life on habitable planets from superflares of their host stars
• The Feasibility and Benefits of In Situ Exploration of `Oumuamua-like objects
• A Review of Exoplanetary Biosignatures
• Extragalactic SETI: The Tully-Fisher relation as a probe of Dysonian astroengineering in disk galaxies
• A Stochastic Process Approach of the Drake Equation Parameters
• Would contact with extraterrestrials benefit or harm humanity? A scenario analysis
• Enhanced interplanetary panspermia in the TRAPPIST-1 system
• SETI via Leakage from Light Sails in Exoplanetary Systems
• A New Empirical Constraint on the Prevalence of Technological Species in the Universe
• On the likelihood of non-terrestrial artifacts in the Solar System
• A Search for Laser Emission with Megawatt Thresholds from 5600 FGKM Stars
• Fast Radio Bursts from Extragalactic Light Sails
• Detection Technique for Artificially-Illuminated Objects in the Outer Solar System and Beyond
• Natural and Artificial Spectral Edges in Exoplanets
• On the Origin and Evolution of Life in the Galaxy
• Searching for extraterrestrial intelligence signals in astronomical spectra, including existing data
• The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record?
• The Propitious Role of Solar Energetic Particles in the Origin of Life
• Is Life Most Likely Around Sun-like Stars?
• A Failure of Serendipity: the Square Kilometre Array will struggle to eavesdrop on Human-like ETI
• Visions of Human Futures in Space and SETI
• Possible Photometric Signatures of Moderately Advanced Civilizations: The Clarke Exobelt
• Globular Clusters as Cradles of Life and Advanced Civilizations
• Observational Signatures of Self-Destructive Civilisations
• SETI with Gaia: The observational signatures of nearly complete Dyson spheres
• Modeling Indications of Technology in Planetary Transit Light Curves -- Dark-side illumination
• A Serendipitous MWA Search for Narrow-band and Broad-band Low Frequency Radio Transmissions from 1I/2017 U1 'Oumuamua
• Prior Indigenous Technological Species
• Transit Detection of a "Starshade" at the Inner Lagrange Point of an Exoplanet
• Our Sky now and then $-$ searches for lost stars and impossible effects as probes of advanced extra-terrestrial civilisations
• Valuing life detection missions
• Power Beaming Leakage Radiation as a SETI Observable
• Optimal Target Stars in the Search for Life
• Interstellar communication. II. Application to the solar gravitational lens
• Limitations of Chemical Propulsion for Interstellar Escape from Habitable Zones around Low-Mass Stars

Cited by in corpus (21)

• The Case for Technosignatures: Why They May Be Abundant, Long-lived, Highly Detectable, and Unambiguous
• Nitrogen Dioxide Pollution as a Signature of Extraterrestrial Technology
• The Nine Axes of Merit for Technosignature Searches
• Dependence of Biological Activity on the Surface Water Fraction of Planets
• Identifying Interstellar Objects Trapped in the Solar System through Their Orbital Parameters
• Concepts for future missions to search for technosignatures
• Photosynthesis on habitable planets around low-mass stars
• Propulsion of Spacecrafts to Relativistic Speeds Using Natural Astrophysical Sources
• Role of stellar physics in regulating the critical steps for life
• Observational Constraints on the Great Filter
• Eta-Earth Revisited II: Deriving a Maximum Number of Earth-like Habitats in the Galactic Disk
• Quantifying the information impact of future searches for exoplanetary biosignatures
• A Bayesian Analysis of Technological Intelligence in Land and Oceans
• Qualitative classification of extraterrestrial civilizations
• Triggering A Climate Change Dominated "Anthropocene": Is It Common Among Exocivilizations?
• Persistence of Technosignatures: A Comment on Lingam and Loeb
• Possibility of a coordinated signaling scheme in the Galaxy and SETI experiments
• Search for Galactic Civilizations Using Historical Supernovae
• Planetary Scale Information Transmission in the Biosphere and Technosphere: Limits and Evolution
• Constraints on the abundance of $0.01c$ stellar engines in the Milky Way
• Artificial Greenhouse Gases as Exoplanet Technosignatures