[QUOTE](Nature Geoscience has Embargoed Details until 11 a.m. EDT Sept. 28)
NASA will detail a major science finding from the agency’s ongoing exploration of Mars during a news briefing at 11:30 a.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 28 at the James Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The event will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency's website.[/QUOTE]
Source link: [url]http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-announce-mars-mystery-solved[/url]
I haven't been this excited for a press release in ages!
"Mars is dead"
No shit
Hunch: I reckon it will be the finding of amino acids in the river deposits.
That would be rad
"We solved the methane question, its coming from the rotting remains of a blue whale"
"Oh ya in other news we discovered a dead whale on mars, we are requesting congress to fast track a rover to go see it, but they denied it, currently we are also searching for the remains of a flowerpot that typically is found near such events"
[editline]25th September 2015[/editline]
Surely it cant be the initial findings of maven, that probes been there like less than a year
I've read somewhere with regards to the Fermi Paradox, if we were to find life it would be devastating news because it would hint that the great filter is ahead of us (or something along those lines).
Thoughts? I'm just vaguely babbling about something I read out of a blog article.
[QUOTE=Bradyns;48757187]Hunch: I reckon it will be the finding of amino acids in the river deposits.[/QUOTE]
Wouldn't surprise me. In the 50's a guy ran current through 4 elements (Water, Amonia Hydrogen and Methane) and after a week a percentage of the carbon had amino acids in it, and an even higher percentage became organic compounds. It was super easy
Life is just common, all you need is very loose conditions and for the conditions to not radically change for a long enough period of time for the 'life' to further develop
[QUOTE=exhale77;48757475]I've read somewhere with regards to the Fermi Paradox, if we were to find life it would be devastating news because it would hint that the great filter is ahead of us (or something along those lines).
Thoughts? I'm just vaguely babbling about something I read out of a blog article.[/QUOTE]
You're right.
Fermi paradox states that life either doesn't exist elsewhere, or something kills everything before interstellar travel becomes possible
[QUOTE=ZakkShock;48757883]You're right.
Fermi paradox states that life either doesn't exist elsewhere, or something kills everything before interstellar travel becomes possible[/QUOTE]
Both the Fermi Paradox and the Great Filter have their faults and counterarguments, and they are both pretty controversial as well. There's many different proposed solutions or explanations to both of them, so I wouldn't hedge your bets. Finding life would be a pretty substantial leap forwards for us because it confirms that we aren't alone. Just because we haven't made contact doesn't mean they don't exist in that case.
[QUOTE=exhale77;48757475]I've read somewhere with regards to the Fermi Paradox, if we were to find life it would be devastating news because it would hint that the great filter is ahead of us (or something along those lines).
Thoughts? I'm just vaguely babbling about something I read out of a blog article.[/QUOTE]
Fermi Paradox is bullshit. It assumes Earth is special and that aliens would care to interact - if they even have the ability - with us.
It's really just a combination of no culture ever living long enough, combined with the utter vastness of space causing the cultures that do exist at the same time having no chance of communicating with one another.
[QUOTE=Irockz;48758560]Fermi Paradox is bullshit. It assumes Earth is special and that aliens would care to interact - if they even have the ability - with us.[/QUOTE]
Uh, no? Where did you get that? The Fermi Paradox doesn't make either assumption, it's relevant for two reasons.
Firstly, we are capable of observing the universe outside of our solar system. A Kardashev Type II civilization should be readily visible through telescopes because of the scales of the energy involved, let alone a Type III. We may not be able to see other planets directly, but if an alien civilization built a Dyson sphere we'd be able to see it.
Secondly, population pressures dictate that even with a modest rate of reproduction, a spacefaring species should be able to fill the galaxy to the brim in what is a blink of the eye in cosmic terms. In the history of the Earth, the human race is an addendum to a footnote to the last sentence of the epilogue, yet our population has exploded exponentially in just a few thousand years. It's not about whether they would 'care to interact', it's that if their population is increasing, a few tens or hundreds of thousands of years of a head start should mean they're all over our galaxy.
There's no assumption in either case that Earth is special and neither is predicated on the willingness of aliens to contact us, presenting it as 'why haven't aliens landed on Earth' is an oversimplification.
[QUOTE=catbarf;48758776]We may not be able to see other planets directly, but if an alien civilization built a Dyson sphere we'd be able to see it.[/QUOTE]
What exactly are you going on here? Because when it comes to visible light a Dyson sphere would be basically invisible unless you're really close to it and as for other radiation it still shouldn't release a lot we could detect seeing as the point of a Dyson sphere is to utilize all the energy of its parent star.
[QUOTE=Alice3173;48758799]What exactly are you going on here? Because when it comes to visible light a Dyson sphere would be basically invisible unless you're really close to it and as for other radiation it still shouldn't release a lot we could detect seeing as the point of a Dyson sphere is to utilize all the energy of its parent star.[/QUOTE]
It can use all the energy from the star, but thanks to thermodynamics its total heat output has to be the same or greater, so it should be just as visible as a regular star in the IR spectrum. An object that emits no visible light but glows like a star in the IR is generally considered to be signs of a Dyson sphere.
[QUOTE=ZakkShock;48757883]You're right.
Fermi paradox states that life either doesn't exist elsewhere, or something kills everything before interstellar travel becomes possible[/QUOTE]
Maybe we're simply the first sentient beings
[QUOTE=Irockz;48758560]Fermi Paradox is bullshit. It assumes Earth is special and that aliens would care to interact - if they even have the ability - with us.[/QUOTE]
It's not bullshit if I remember right. The premise revolves around the fact that space is big and full of life killing cataclysms.
First off, you need a suitable planet. It must have something like a strong magnetosphere, sufficient nutrients, and an external power source (like a star). Not sure about temperature/radiation but it mustn't sanitize or stunt the growth of life.
Starting off with basic microbes, they have to evolve exceptional intelligence over time. For us, it took about 3 billion years.
A lot of it is stalled by "local" extinction events but we so far haven't been completely annihilated by not so local extinction events like, lets say, a small dwarf planet of a meteor, a stray black hole, or even an oncoming galaxy (yet).
Now, lets say they've evolved to a point where they are smarter than us, or at least knowledgeable enough to know the ins and outs of space tech.
One of the major obstacles is the shear distance between noteworthy stuff. If you take in consideration of the scale and how often global cataclysms occur to other solar systems and the requirements to create a cradle of life, let alone have anyone evolved enough to have their high tech ears pointed towards space, the likelihood of finding anybody capable of listening to radiowaves seems already pretty low.
Once we found something, we still have to wait many thousands of years at least for our reply to arrive.
This is all assuming FTL is impossible.
In all likelihood, extraterrestrial life almost certainly exist, but good luck finding it within your local neighborhood.
tl;dr Fermi Paradox doesn't deny et life exists, you just won't be able to contact them due to space being a big, scary place with no easy way to get around/survive.
disclaimer: i'm not an astronomer or follower of these kinds of things
[QUOTE=catbarf;48758776]Uh, no? Where did you get that? The Fermi Paradox doesn't make either assumption, it's relevant for two reasons.
Firstly, we are capable of observing the universe outside of our solar system. A Kardashev Type II civilization should be readily visible through telescopes because of the scales of the energy involved, let alone a Type III. We may not be able to see other planets directly, but if an alien civilization built a Dyson sphere we'd be able to see it.
Secondly, population pressures dictate that even with a modest rate of reproduction, a spacefaring species should be able to fill the galaxy to the brim in what is a blink of the eye in cosmic terms. In the history of the Earth, the human race is an addendum to a footnote to the last sentence of the epilogue, yet our population has exploded exponentially in just a few thousand years. It's not about whether they would 'care to interact', it's that if their population is increasing, a few tens or hundreds of thousands of years of a head start should mean they're all over our galaxy.
There's no assumption in either case that Earth is special and neither is predicated on the willingness of aliens to contact us, presenting it as 'why haven't aliens landed on Earth' is an oversimplification.[/QUOTE]
Why would they necessarily have a dyson sphere?
[QUOTE=Irockz;48758983]Why would they necessarily have a dyson sphere?[/QUOTE]
A Dyson sphere is the most direct, efficient way to harvest all the power of a star, but even if they didn't, the point is that if we're postulating a civilization capable of wielding energies orders of magnitude greater than ours, then those effects should be visible even across interstellar distances. If there's a civilization in our galaxy that can destroy planets or create stars, we should be able to see this kind of activity with little more than a telescope.
The fact that we don't see evidence of manipulation of those levels of energy suggests that either no such beings exist in our galaxy, or they're keeping a low profile- which would suggest some sort of threat.
Plus, we're talking about the entire galaxy. If alien life is common and just not interacting with us, surely [i]someone[/i] would build a Dyson sphere. Again, that's just one example of the kind of evidence we're looking for.
Crossing my fingers for Prothean technology.
[QUOTE=catbarf;48759126]A Dyson sphere is the most direct, efficient way to harvest all the power of a star, but even if they didn't, the point is that if we're postulating a civilization capable of wielding energies orders of magnitude greater than ours, then those effects should be visible even across interstellar distances. If there's a civilization in our galaxy that can destroy planets or create stars, we should be able to see this kind of activity with little more than a telescope.
The fact that we don't see evidence of manipulation of those levels of energy suggests that either no such beings exist in our galaxy, or they're keeping a low profile- which would suggest some sort of threat.
Plus, we're talking about the entire galaxy. If alien life is common and just not interacting with us, surely [i]someone[/i] would build a Dyson sphere. Again, that's just one example of the kind of evidence we're looking for.[/QUOTE]
I sometimes wonder if an alien civilization would even come across the idea of such a construct. Just because it makes the most logical sense to us, doesn't mean that any/every other alien race would come up with a similar idea. How strange it is, to imagine that there could be other civilizations out there, but they've never even considered traveling into/through space.
When I read the title I was expecting something along the lines of "It's a planet".
[QUOTE=catbarf;48759126]A Dyson sphere is the most direct, efficient way to harvest all the power of a star, but even if they didn't, the point is that if we're postulating a civilization capable of wielding energies orders of magnitude greater than ours, then those effects should be visible even across interstellar distances. If there's a civilization in our galaxy that can destroy planets or create stars, we should be able to see this kind of activity with little more than a telescope.
The fact that we don't see evidence of manipulation of those levels of energy suggests that either no such beings exist in our galaxy, or they're keeping a low profile- which would suggest some sort of threat.
Plus, we're talking about the entire galaxy. If alien life is common and just not interacting with us, surely [i]someone[/i] would build a Dyson sphere. Again, that's just one example of the kind of evidence we're looking for.[/QUOTE]
You're making a lot of strange assumptions about how other life forms would act and think.
[QUOTE=Alice3173;48758799]What exactly are you going on here? Because when it comes to visible light a Dyson sphere would be basically invisible unless you're really close to it and as for other radiation it still shouldn't release a lot we could detect seeing as the point of a Dyson sphere is to utilize all the energy of its parent star.[/QUOTE]
We would notice a blob of dark space the size of a solar system in IR, plus we can calculate the gravitational effects of stars and a Dyson sphere would be like tossing a few extra stars in the model where none were seen
[QUOTE=Zero-Point;48759159]I sometimes wonder if an alien civilization would even come across the idea of such a construct. Just because it makes the most logical sense to us, doesn't mean that any/every other alien race would come up with a similar idea. How strange it is, to imagine that there could be other civilizations out there, but they've never even considered traveling into/through space.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=paul simon;48759397]You're making a lot of strange assumptions about how other life forms would act and think.[/QUOTE]
The only assumption here is that they are capable of logic. If an alien race is incapable of comparing problems (in this case, the problem of energy generation) to solutions and seeking the most effective answer, they won't be inventing wheels, let alone going to the stars. Being able to self-improve is a necessity of technological development and the Dyson sphere represents the ultimate solution to the problem of gathering energy from a star.
Even unthinking nature produces similar solutions to generalized problems over the course of evolution. Different animal families have evolved similar structures like eyes or teeth entirely independently, because they represent the most efficient and effective solutions to a given problem.
And again, it's a big galaxy. Even if you can postulate some consistent reason why 99% of alien races would never seek to gather all the energy emitted by a star (and I've yet to hear one), the 1% that remains should be visible to us.
[QUOTE=Zero-Point;48759159]I sometimes wonder if an alien civilization would even come across the idea of such a construct. Just because it makes the most logical sense to us, doesn't mean that any/every other alien race would come up with a similar idea. How strange it is, to imagine that there could be other civilizations out there, but they've never even considered traveling into/through space.[/QUOTE]
ya dyson was sort of zero-sum when it came to things, just because a dyson sphere is the maximum efficiency, doesn't mean they don't just build gigantic fusion power-plants instead, theres plenty of material for fusion instead of building a giant solar collector, plus dyson was working in the age when you didn't consider things like kipler belt objects or rogue asteroids, his understanding was in the process, a civilization would clear out an entire solar system, but today we know that to be a near impossible task, even if you depleted everything in the outter solar system on the sphere, you still have junk falling in from interstellar space. it might be more practical to just build large solar collectors near a star's poles instead of around one, because a collector in a polar orbit would not affect the planets orbiting the star and could beam power anywhere in the solar system
[QUOTE=ZakkShock;48757883]You're right.
Fermi paradox states that life either doesn't exist elsewhere, or something kills everything before interstellar travel becomes possible[/QUOTE]
Or maybe interstellar travel is just impossible period. Maybe it's a level of technology that simply can never be reached by anyone. Everyone seems to assume that with enough time everything can be done, maybe it can't.
dyson didn't build practicality into his stuff, maybe it is possible to build a sphere, and maybe you could avoid everything, but things like ringworlds or solar beaming stations are more practical because we know the solar system is not entirely predictable and thats not a problem of just pure resources, there are unpredictable things that happen in the solar system like untraceable objects falling into our solar system
[QUOTE=catbarf;48760067]The only assumption here is that they are capable of logic. If an alien race is incapable of comparing problems (in this case, the problem of energy generation) to solutions and seeking the most effective answer, they won't be inventing wheels, let alone going to the stars. Being able to self-improve is a necessity of technological development and the Dyson sphere represents the ultimate solution to the problem of gathering energy from a star.
Even unthinking nature produces similar solutions to generalized problems over the course of evolution. Different animal families have evolved similar structures like eyes or teeth entirely independently, because they represent the most efficient and effective solutions to a given problem.
And again, it's a big galaxy. Even if you can postulate some consistent reason why 99% of alien races would never seek to gather all the energy emitted by a star (and I've yet to hear one), the 1% that remains should be visible to us.[/QUOTE]
Umm yeah, you're assuming that extra terrestrial life have the same way of thinking as humans about using a Dyson sphere.
Who knows what other more effective energy source they have already discovered, dark energy for instance. That would make a Dyson sphere obsolete.
[QUOTE=Zestence;48760229]Or maybe interstellar travel is just impossible period. Maybe it's a level of technology that simply can never be reached by anyone. Everyone seems to assume that with enough time everything can be done, maybe it can't.[/QUOTE]
Interstellar travel can be done. Reasonably. On technology we already have, unless there's some big boundary box around our system that we don't know about.
The problem is that it takes a really, really long time. You can use solar sails and stuff, but you're still looking at a voyage of a few thousand years per trip.
Faster than light travel, on the other hand, is almost entirely impossible. To accelerate a craft of a few hundred tons to the speed of light would require the energy density of a planet larger than ours. That sort of technology isn't just exotic, it's firmly in the realm of science fiction.
[QUOTE=iAmaNewb;48760256]Umm yeah, you're assuming that extra terrestrial life have the same way of thinking as humans about using a Dyson sphere.
Who knows what other more effective energy source they have already discovered, dark energy for instance. That would make a Dyson sphere obsolete.[/QUOTE]
You're right that if some better source of energy comes along then you might as well use that. But I'd counter that if you're going to say that it's an assumption that a species would work towards a Dyson sphere, it's equally an assumption that if dark energy is viable that [i]every[/i] race would develop it, because if any miss that and continue in the development of nuclear fusion instead, we should inevitably see a sphere or spheres. It's simply the most efficient means of gathering the energy emitted by nuclear fusion.
But regardless of the power source, if a species can gather and use energy on a scale greater than what a Dyson sphere can provide, we should be able to see the emitted radiation from that energy use. It doesn't really matter where the power's coming from, either way it's going to emit as heat- you can see a distant lantern at night because it's emitting light, it doesn't matter if it's powered by oil or batteries.
If there's anything out there producing or consuming large amounts of energy, we should be able to see it. The fact that we don't see any evidence of intelligent life manipulating energy on this scale suggests that either life is unique to Earth, life does not progress to that level of technological development for some reason, or highly technologically advanced life is trying desperately to hide itself from some greater threat. The latter two of these scenarios invoke the Great Filter.
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