🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <tim.726364246@giaeb> tim@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au (Tim Roberts) writes:
>Lots of money (I understand) is being spent on SETI...

Actually very little, as these things go.  The ongoing SETI efforts are
quite small.

>So, we are left with a civilisation that is probably very far ahead of ours,
>but wants to contact us (for some reason).  Now, how would they go about it ?
>Surely they'd set beacons somewhere in space...
>So, my question is, given that we ought to look for beacons that cannot be
>missed:  has anyone examined the immediate vicinity of pulsars ?  I mean,
>REALLY examined them ?

Astronomers are very interested in the immediate vicinity of pulsars,
because it's an excellent bet that you can find objects of great theoretical
interest (accretion disks and such) there.  Peculiar and conspicuous objects
thereabouts would not be missed.  And yes, astronomers take the possibility
of finding an extraterrestrial beacon quite seriously -- the first pulsars
caused a considerable stir until it was clear that they were just natural
phenomena.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry