SETI Scientists Call for Permanent Monitoring of Signal from Deep Space
91 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Jelman;50970113]Was going to mention that film.
Even with how shitty the plot to that film is, a scenario like that could occur where we contact someone and then get fucked up by a Type III Civilization[/QUOTE]
Yeah, and that would be [B]why[/B] exactly? You don't go around and stab people that say "hi" to you on the street, do you?
[QUOTE=LoneWolf_Recon;50970076]I'm willing to take a stab and say this is a 6/10 on the [URL="http://avsport.org/IAA/riocalc.htm"]Rio Scale[/URL].
But lets wait and get further confirmation from other stations.[/QUOTE]
How did you get a 6? I put in what I felt we have and got a 2.
[QUOTE=Jelman;50970113]Was going to mention that film.
Even with how shitty the plot to that film is, a scenario like that could occur where we contact someone and then get fucked up by a Type III Civilization[/QUOTE]
If a Type III Civilization would contact us, they are advance enough to barely care about taking Earth. If they are a galaxy wide civilization that has probably constructed Dyson spheres, Ring Worlds, Massive Orbital Constructs, or other massive gigantic structures. A planet like Earth would be a normal house to them.
[QUOTE=Deathtrooper2;50970297]If a Type III Civilization would contact us, they are advance enough to barely care about taking Earth. If they are a galaxy wide civilization that has probably constructed Dyson spheres, Ring Worlds, Massive Orbital Constructs, or other massive gigantic structures. A planet like Earth would be a normal house(/wildlife preserve) to them.[/QUOTE]
True. They'd probably come across a "stable" life-bearing world like ours, an oasis in the desert of Orion-Cygnus, and claim it for some sort of Galactic Natural Trust.
[QUOTE=ironman17;50970328]True. They'd probably come across a "stable" life-bearing world like ours, an oasis in the desert of Orion-Cygnus, and claim it for some sort of Galactic Natural Trust.[/QUOTE]
That could be a possibility (funny because i actually typed wildlife preserve before i switched it to normal house).
[QUOTE=matt000024;50969924]Relevant to the whole "they must be more advanced than us" posts:
[url]https://eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf[/url][/QUOTE]
Interesting read but they [I]really[/I] need to learn to clearly delineate the changes in perspective. The first shift from the Roxolani to the humans took me like 2-3 paragraphs to finally grasp because it just went straight from one paragraph into another without any indication that the perspective had changed.
[QUOTE=kariko;50970288]How did you get a 6? I put in what I felt we have and got a 2.[/QUOTE]
Omnidirectional beacon (It seemed to pass Occam's razer more than the other choices)
SETI/SETA observation; steady phenomenon verifiable by repeated observation or investigation (Independent Russian astronomers originally discovered it and SETI has verified that signal, if I'm reading the article correctly).
Within the Galaxy (I couldn't put within a human lifetime considering 95 light-years is kinda on the cusp)
Very probable, with verification already carried out (Because of my reasoning above)
Although, it might actually be closer to a 3. I might just be jumping the gun here.
NASA is shooting a live feed from space on their youtube channel right now if anyone wants to check that out.
[QUOTE=LoneWolf_Recon;50970430]Omnidirectional beacon (It seemed to pass Occam's razer more than the other choices)
SETI/SETA observation; steady phenomenon verifiable by repeated observation or investigation (Independent Russian astronomers originally discovered it and SETI has verified that signal, if I'm reading the article correctly).
Within the Galaxy (I couldn't put within a human lifetime considering 95 light-years is kinda on the cusp)
Very probable, with verification already carried out (Because of my reasoning above)
Although, it might actually be closer to a 3. I might just be jumping the gun here.[/QUOTE]
Oh I put mostly the same but I rated the class of phenomenon really low. Now that I reread the article, I can see it being rated higher so I see how you got that. I really hope it is something huge! Every time something like this comes up I get super optimistic and hope for the best outcome.
:alien: I want to believe. :alien:
[QUOTE=l337k1ll4;50969541]That isn't how radio astronomy works. We've sent signals decades ago to star systems tens of thousands of light years away, and they'll still be detectable when they arrive tens of thousands of years from now.[/QUOTE]
With the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_loss]path-loss formula[/url] and lets say a transmitting [del]frequency[/del] wavelength of 21cm (hydrogen line) we're looking at a path loss of ~394dB (~435dB for 10kly) between us and the star 95ly away, thats a tremendous amount of loss.
The issue I'm having is finding gain figures for telescopes, the Square Kilometer Array has something in the range of 200dB at that frequency range I think. So we would need to make up a loss of 194dB signal loss. A similarly sized array could easily get a signal that weak into the range of a receiver.
Looking at these numbers I think I was seriously overestimating the loss factors.
[QUOTE=Cakebatyr;50971196]With the [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_loss"]path-loss formula[/URL] and lets say a transmitting frequency of 21cm (hydrogen line) we're looking at a path loss of ~394dB (~435dB for 10kly) between us and the star 95ly away, thats a tremendous amount of loss.
The issue I'm having is finding gain figures for telescopes, the Square Kilometer Array has something in the range of 200dB at that frequency range I think. So we would need to make up a loss of 194dB signal loss. A similarly sized array could easily get a signal that weak into the range of a receiver.
Looking at these numbers I think I was seriously overestimating the loss factors.[/QUOTE]
Agreed, I think that the fact we're receiving anything [U]above the background noise[/U] (Especially with path loss), and its [U]a consistent so far verified signal[/U], and [U]no pulsars or other natural bodies have been identified as the source cause[/U] is quiet noteworthy.
Also the signal is being detected on 2.7cm according to the source's source. I hate to be a numerologist, but the frequency at 2.7cm is 1111.111111MHz. :mystery:
Would be pretty sweet if it is found to be another race's signal and we're both on a relatively equal tech level, maybe in a couple hundred years we could make physical contact. Although it sucks how movies portray them because both sides would have to be in the equivalent of hazmat suits so we don't give each other diseases.
[QUOTE]the same day and location where Elon Musk will reveal his plans to colonize Mars. The Observer will be following up on both these stories from the Congress[/QUOTE]
I got chills reading this. Despite iPads and self-driving cars, this is what made me realise that we are finally in what, for the longest time, we thought of as a science-fiction future.
[QUOTE=LoneWolf_Recon;50971464]I think that the fact we're receiving anything [U]above the background noise[/U] (Especially with path loss), and its [U]a consistent so far verified signal[/U], and [U]no pulsars or other natural bodies have been identified as the source cause[/U] is quiet noteworthy.
Also the signal is being detected on 2.7cm according to the source's source. I hate to be a numerologist, but the frequency at 2.7cm is 1111.111111MHz. :mystery:[/QUOTE]
The first part of your post isn't a bad point, but the second part is only shocking if the metre and the second (and hence the hertz) are actually a natural choice of units to use, and they're just not.
[QUOTE=LoneWolf_Recon;50971464]Also the signal is being detected on 2.7cm according to the source's source. I hate to be a numerologist, but the frequency at 2.7cm is 1111.111111MHz. :mystery:[/QUOTE]
I hate to disappoint, but two problems: Hertz, or cycles per second, is based on an extremely arbitrary definition of a unit of time. It would be such a highly improbable coincidence for an alien civilisation to use our exact same definition of a second, for a unit of time. And two, the representation of that frequency is in base 10; would be highly improbable that an alien race would also use base 10 given how arbitrary it also is (based on how many fingers we have, unlike say base 12 which is based on a highly composite number).
Tl;dr massive coincidence
[QUOTE=ironman17;50969391]
Could just be a natural phenomenon, but never hurts to look. After all, despite being an abyss, space doesn't look back into at that which looks at it.[/QUOTE]
“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
― Arthur C. Clarke
[QUOTE=AngryToad;50969242]but was kept secret from the international community.[/QUOTE]
Thats pretty divisive wording... The UNIVERSITY kept the signal a secret by not giving enough fucks to share it while still continuing the study...
How would we even tell if it's actual aliens? We are receiving the signal but with no way to decode it, it could end up being some sort of interstellar thing that we didn't know about before.
Either way it's exciting.
[QUOTE=Cakebatyr;50969383]Because that will take (95*2)+[I]n[/I] years to get back to us. With [I]n[/I] being the amount of time (in years) it takes for them to detect, and figure out its an artificial signal.
Then theres the issue of just how much power we would need to generate to get a signal out there.[/QUOTE]
We could still do it, a couple data bursts on a set schedule. If you focus a signal directly at them i have no doubt if they are even halfheartedly listening they will catch the signal blasting through all speakers.
Who cares if it will take a hundred years to get there, its not like we have to send a hundred years long, just a couple months every week should be plenty.
Power use is reasonable, too, just build a nuclear plant next to the transmitter... then use the power plant for civilian applications afterwards
When people make these claims like 3we would need incredible power to send that signal, its impossible! they are usually thinking of sending a signal in all directions at once.
The real question is... [B]should[/B] we do it?... we could possibly be calling in for the space conquistadors to bring us a visit. I doubt we have anything they would want besides minimal manpower and production, but even then the thought of becoming a vassal, even if merely political of a benevolent overlord society seems less then ideal considering how well we are doing on our own atm.
[editline]30th August 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=Svinnik;50972030]How would we even tell if it's actual aliens? We are receiving the signal but with no way to decode it, it could end up being some sort of interstellar thing that we didn't know about before.
Either way it's exciting.[/QUOTE]
Natural objects usually dont produce mathematical formulas, aliens capable of interstellar communication (even if not deliberate, like humans) out of necessity would have to send mathematical formulas every so often.
This means that there will be logic embedded into the signal. that logic we can decode, even if we wont know what is being said, with some luck we would be able to know general concepts and themes the aliens are talking about.
[QUOTE=Svinnik;50972030]How would we even tell if it's actual aliens? We are receiving the signal but with no way to decode it, it could end up being some sort of interstellar thing that we didn't know about before.
Either way it's exciting.[/QUOTE]
Well if we were to throw a signal out there with the intent of contacting unknown green folks, we'd probably do something like what we did with the probes - establish universal (in the most literal use of the word) units for measurement. The Pioneer plaque shows a diagram describing the hyperfine transition of hydrogen, which gives you a unit of time and a unit of distance. These units get used elsewhere in the plaque, and so it's absolutely certain that if the thing that finds the plaque has a knowledge of particle physics, they'll be able to decode it.
With radio it's different, because it would be a loop of information and you'd have to do all sorts of weird things where the chronology of information in the loop is essential. But you cram a lot of information in there and ensure that, given time, they'd be able to understand it exactly. I mean shit, define enough galactic landmarks and use the hydrogen measurements and you could show somebody exactly where our system is.
[editline]30th August 2016[/editline]
either that or they send dick pics
true story man [url]http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/10/rogue-microwave-ovens-are-the-culprits-behind-mysterious-radio-signals/[/url]
aka while it's nice to imagine the signal is something, in reality it's not
too old, no confirmations from multiple sources etc.
[QUOTE=Cakebatyr;50969435]If they have enough power to transmit a signal we can detect from 95 light years away, that could put them 95 years ahead of us [I]at least[/I] in technology.
What did we have 95 years ago?[/QUOTE]Well alternatively they're doing some dumb fucking experiment that's polluting everything in our direction with this signal, if they're on par with us completely 95 years ago we weren't sure if spaceflight was possible. They could very well have an alien Nikola Tesla in his pigeon whisperer stage trying to bounce a radar wave off a nearby planet with a ridiculously huge antenna.
I mean if we're going with the "it's intelligent life" theory they might be just as clueless and reckless as we are.
[QUOTE=cartman300;50970129]Yeah, and that would be [B]why[/B] exactly? You don't go around and stab people that say "hi" to you on the street, do you?[/QUOTE]
I was just about to say this. I'm sure if we discovered another civilization they would be just as excited to discover us. I don't know where all the movies get this stupid idea they're going to destroy us on contact
[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;50972376]
I mean if we're going with the "it's intelligent life" theory they might be just as clueless and reckless as we are.[/QUOTE]
Sounds awesome, can't wait.
[editline]30th August 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=Kylel999;50972503]I was just about to say this. I'm sure if we discovered another civilization they would be just as excited to discover us. I don't know where all the movies get this stupid idea they're going to destroy us on contact[/QUOTE]
Really depends, it's making a lot of assumptions about what structure other life will take.
I think this passage is relevant.
[quote=Blindsight] Once there were three tribes. The Optimists, whose patron saints were Drake and Sagan, believed in a universe crawling with gentle intelligence—spiritual brethren vaster and more enlightened than we, a great galactic siblinghood into whose ranks we would someday ascend. Surely, said the Optimists, space travel implies enlightenment, for it requires the control of great destructive energies. Any race which can't rise above its own brutal instincts will wipe itself out long before it learns to bridge the interstellar gulf.
Across from the Optimists sat the Pessimists, who genuflected before graven images of Saint Fermi and a host of lesser lightweights. The Pessimists envisioned a lonely universe full of dead rocks and prokaryotic slime. The odds are just too low, they insisted. Too many rogues, too much radiation, too much eccentricity in too many orbits. It is a surpassing miracle that even one Earth exists; to hope for many is to abandon reason and embrace religious mania. After all, the universe is fourteen billion years old: if the galaxy were alive with intelligence, wouldn't it be here by now?
Equidistant to the other two tribes sat the Historians. They didn't have too many thoughts on the probable prevalence of intelligent, spacefaring extraterrestrials— but if there are any, they said, they're not just going to be smart. They're going to be mean.
It might seem almost too obvious a conclusion. What is Human history, if not an ongoing succession of greater technologies grinding lesser ones beneath their boots? But the subject wasn't merely Human history, or the unfair advantage that tools gave to any given side; the oppressed snatch up advanced weaponry as readily as the oppressor, given half a chance. No, the real issue was how those tools got there in the first place. The real issue was what tools are for.
To the Historians, tools existed for only one reason: to force the universe into unnatural shapes. They treated nature as an enemy, they were by definition a rebellion against the way things were. Technology is a stunted thing in benign environments, it never thrived in any culture gripped by belief in natural harmony. Why invent fusion reactors if your climate is comfortable, if your food is abundant? Why build fortresses if you have no enemies? Why force change upon a world which poses no threat?
Human civilization had a lot of branches, not so long ago. Even into the twenty-first century, a few isolated tribes had barely developed stone tools. Some settled down with agriculture. Others weren't content until they had ended nature itself, still others until they'd built cities in space.
We all rested eventually, though. Each new technology trampled lesser ones, climbed to some complacent asymptote, and stopped—until my own mother packed herself away like a larva in honeycomb, softened by machinery, robbed of incentive by her own contentment.
But history never said that everyone had to stop where we did. It only suggested that those who had stopped no longer struggled for existence. There could be other, more hellish worlds where the best Human technology would crumble, where the environment was still the enemy, where the only survivors were those who fought back with sharper tools and stronger empires. The threats contained in those environments would not be simple ones. Harsh weather and natural disasters either kill you or they don't, and once conquered—or adapted to— they lose their relevance. No, the only environmental factors that continued to matter were those that fought back, that countered new strategies with newer ones, that forced their enemies to scale ever-greater heights just to stay alive. Ultimately, the only enemy that mattered was an intelligent one.
And if the best toys do end up in the hands of those who've never forgotten that life itself is an act of war against intelligent opponents, what does that say about a race whose machines travel between the stars?[/quote]
[QUOTE=Kylel999;50972503]I was just about to say this. I'm sure if we discovered another civilization they would be just as excited to discover us. I don't know where all the movies get this stupid idea they're going to destroy us on contact[/QUOTE]
That works on the assumption that they think anything like us. By our standards they may be xenophobic, irrational, basically their mode of thinking could be anything depending on how their civilization developed.
Seems the most likely to me that if we ever witness something like alien intelligence. It'l be as incomprehensible to us as it'd be incomprehensible to ants that a lawnmower passed over them. I doubt we will ever get anything like a 'hello' signal.
[QUOTE=glitchvid;50972522]Sounds awesome, can't wait.[/QUOTE]I have my fingers crossed for space lizards, I need some sexy lizard alien babes in my life.
[editline]30th August 2016[/editline]
:rrerr:
[QUOTE=sltungle;50971858]The first part of your post isn't a bad point, but the second part is only shocking if the metre and the second (and hence the hertz) are actually a natural choice of units to use, and they're just not.[/QUOTE]
I know, I was mainly joking there considering I was using the speed of light approximation of 3*10^8m/s instead of 2.998*10^8.
I'm just really hoping there'll be some signal like Hydrogen Times Pi.
Sure, it would be cool if all this turned out to be true, but, honestly, I don't think we'll ever be able to catch a radio signal from aliens. The reasons are pretty obvious, i guess.
[QUOTE=l337k1ll4;50969423] I mean for years everything everyone's been saying about SETI is that if we ever discovered anything the signal would be tens of thousands of years old and whoever sent it would be long dead by now, but to get a signal so close would be incredible.[/QUOTE]
Kind of a strange assumption, considering we know nothing about the potential lifetime of possible aliens out there. They may be able to live much longer than us.
reading stuff like this always makes me think back to the large city (New York?) central park analogy:
it's a dangerous place at night, you really don't want to be there at that time - there's muggers, rapists, organ harvesters etc. the best way to handle the situation if you find yourself there after dark is to hide and wait until morning, sneak out, or find a cop to escort you out of there. better to assume that all strangers are hostile to not make contact with anyone because they could be the aforementioned murderer.
the universe is sort of like that, except there's no cop, there's no way out and the night never ends
contact between species could turn into dog-eat-dog real quick
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