Rio Scale: Your Ultimate Alien Rumor checker

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    Every time there is a space finding that scientists can’t explain using the normal physics that they have, they assume they just stumbled upon an Alien Civilization. More often than not, journalists take their word for it because they don’t have enough scientific knowledge to differentiate. Wouldn’t it be nice if they had a way to tell just how legitimate the next alien story is. Rio scale is one such way you can know!

    Rio Scale

    Introduced in 2001, Rio Scale is the ultimate scale of checking the legitimacy of the next “Alien Spotted” rumor. Sometimes, scientists are no better than paparazzi! It was developed by Dr Ivan Almar and Jill Tarter of SETI. It is a mathematically defined scale, with a number of inputs that include how credible the report is, and the nature of the evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence contact (δ) as well as its potential significance (Q), encapsulated in a formula (R = Q * δ)). You can check out the calculator for yourself here.

    rio scale
    Rio Scale

    Rio Scale: Recent Changes

    Given the fact that scientists have been trying to look for alien life forms for over 60 years, some frustration on their part is all but expected and justified. So, sometimes, the scientist community starts hallucinating too, thinking they really found aliens, when what they found was a cloud of dust. Yes, I am talking about Tabby’s Star here. When it was first discovered, everybody thought it was an alien mega-structure: Dyson Sphere. This was because there was a fluctuation in their readings. This led them into believing that it was the Dyson Sphere around that alien civilization which caused that fluctuation when in reality, it was just dust that caused it. Bummer. Owing to mainly this incident, Tarter, along with other scientists, thought of coming up with another Rio Scale: RIO SCALE 2.0.

    Lead Author of the new paper Duncan Forgan said that there was a necessity of Rio Scale 2.0 because of the changes in the media landscape today. 

    “It’s absolutely crucial that when we talk about something so hugely significant as the discovery of intelligent life beyond the Earth, we do it clearly and carefully, having Rio 2.0 allows us to rank a signal quickly in a way that the general public can easily understand, and helps us keep their trust in a world filled with fake news” said Forgan.

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