Alien signals MIGHT have been detected

wildthyme467989

http://observer.com/2016/08/not-a-drill-seti-is-investigating-a-possible-extraterrestrial-signal-from-deep-space/

Sounds like we might not be alone in the universe after all

thekodanarmada

You're late to this party.

http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1221138/here-you-go-nerds-go-nuts-seti-thread

wildthyme467989

thekodanarmada#7342 wrote: »

You're late to this party.

http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1221138/here-you-go-nerds-go-nuts-seti-thread

Oops, my bad.

I wanna do a James May right now

Oh Co.......

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angrytarg

thekodanarmada#7342 wrote: »

You're late to this party.

http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1221138/here-you-go-nerds-go-nuts-seti-thread

Better link for non ARC overlay users: http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1221138/here-you-go-nerds-go-nuts-seti-thread​​

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thekodanarmada

The stories are very click-baity. There was nothing earth was doing worthy of note in 1825 to start thinking about shooting high powered radio at it in 1920. My money is on observatory equipment issues versus something random that can put off those kinds of Janskys at that distance.

jonsills

If they are aliens, we can probably still rule out intelligent life. Why become a Kardashev II civilization just long enough to shout once into the void, then stop doing anything notable?

Most likely a microlensing phenomenon, however.​​

markhawkman

:whistle:

wildthyme467989

markhawkman wrote: »

:whistle:

If I could choose to Favourite a post on these forums, it would be this one

smokebailey

I do the CE5 (close encounters of the 5th kind, where humans initiate contact, invite ET's) protocols, and seeing UFO's in the sky on a near nightly basis. Pretty awesome stuffs. Anyone wants to learn it, PM me

nikeix

There's also the trifling tiny detail that we now know some of SETI's basic assumptions were wrong, that our Sun's heliosheath boundary acts as a very effective scrambler and no signal we've ever generated for local use has actually left the solar system as intelligible data. Which sort of implies it's also a lot harder for other people to send a signal that we originally thought.

wombat140

It's a bit silly to start the article by saying that the signals are from "a 6.3-billion-year-old star"; it makes it look as if that's supposed to have some relevance to this, maybe that this is a civilisation billions of years old or something like that, whereas in fact, our own sun is 4.6 billion years old so it's not THAT old in star terms.

from the article wrote:

Basically, if the signal was beamed out into the galaxy without aim or direction, that would require an enormous amount of power to actually be detected. But what if the signal was beamed specifically at our solar system? Well, that would require less energy and could indicate the presence of a Kardashev Type I civilization—meaning that it could be a highly technological, contemporary society that harnesses the solar energy emitted by its local star, much like our planet does with solar panels. This particular civilization’s social structure is theorized to be completely globalized and interconnected.

Where did that last sentence come from? Based on one single signal that they don't even feel sure is genuine yet, let alone what it means? "Is theorized", indeed. Using the passive voice won't conceal the fact that "is theorized" just means "a starry-eyed SETI underling speculated in my hearing"!

jonsills wrote: »

If they are aliens, we can probably still rule out intelligent life. Why become a Kardashev II civilization just long enough to shout once into the void, then stop doing anything notable?

It might not be just once. That's why the SETI people are aiming their telescopes at it in hopes that it'll do it again. (Or do you mean, why haven't they seen it before? I don't know, fair point. How long have they been monitoring that section of sky and with equipment good enough to have picked up that signal?) But it did also say that the other possibility is that they're only sending out signals in a single direction at a time, as we have from time to time, and we just happened to get lucky this time and be facing the right way at the right time when they sent a bleep in our direction. According to the writer of that article, that wouldn't require a Kardashev II civilisation, it was only if they were broadcasting such signals in all directions at once that it would imply that level of power.

nikeix wrote: »

There's also the trifling tiny detail that we now know some of SETI's basic assumptions were wrong, that our Sun's heliosheath boundary acts as a very effective scrambler and no signal we've ever generated for local use has actually left the solar system as intelligible data. Which sort of implies it's also a lot harder for other people to send a signal that we originally thought.

Is that true? That does make it hard to see how they knew where to aim it to, if they did aim it. But it could have been that, as suggested, they were broadcasting in all directions with some hugely powerful technology, or else maybe they've just been sweeping likely-looking exoplanets and got lucky. Or, bearing in mind Smokebailey's comment, maybe they're psychic, in which case they could have picked up the presence of a civilisation here on a completely different "band". (Though if they can do that you'd think they'd send their signals that way, too, rather than by radio. But then, they might do that as a back-up in case we weren't as psychic as they were; that would make sense.)

As for it being "harder for other people to send a signal than we thought", though, now we know about that, I assume we COULD now send a signal into space. So it's fair enough to assume that it wouldn't have permanently foxed every other civilisation in the galaxy either. And the fact that SETI's "basic assumptions were wrong" in terms of why they originally thought they should be searching for signals doesn't really have any bearing on whether or not this thing is genuine, now they've found something. That depends on how impressive the signal really is and whether they do get another one.

jonsills

They aimed scopes at it. The performance was not repeated.

And now the Russian observatory says the signal was from a "terrestrial" source - that is, one on or near Earth. No further details yet, but the last time this happened at a Russian observatory, it turned out to be a Soviet-era military satellite that hadn't been entered into the standard registry (for fairly obvious reasons, if you're old enough to remember the Cold War). And another such observatory - I seem to remember Jodrell Bank, although I could be misremembering - had a remarkable signal that turned out to be a faulty microwave in the break room...​​

markhawkman

Yeah, then there was the famous "WOW!" signal, that was almost certainly a satellite, but never officially explained.

But yeah, the sun generates massive amounts of EM interference. Earth is protected from a lot of it by the various magnetic fields and particle belts that surround the planet. But outside earth's field, simple stuff like cell phones would get levels of interference that made them hard to use if they even worked. Now imagine that over great distances...

lilchibiclari

wombat140 wrote: »

from the article wrote:

Basically, if the signal was beamed out into the galaxy without aim or direction, that would require an enormous amount of power to actually be detected. But what if the signal was beamed specifically at our solar system? Well, that would require less energy and could indicate the presence of a Kardashev Type I civilization—meaning that it could be a highly technological, contemporary society that harnesses the solar energy emitted by its local star, much like our planet does with solar panels. This particular civilization’s social structure is theorized to be completely globalized and interconnected.

Where did that last sentence come from? Based on one single signal that they don't even feel sure is genuine yet, let alone what it means? "Is theorized", indeed. Using the passive voice won't conceal the fact that "is theorized" just means "a starry-eyed SETI underling speculated in my hearing"!

Basically, you can't channel a planet's entire energy output to a single endeavour (implied if a Type I civilization were sending the signal) if you have your planet divided up between rival societies who do not all agree to combine their outputs on the project.

wendysue53

This article sounds like the signal Tesla was investigating.

wendysue53

And YES there ARE aliens!

Everyone from another place is ALIEN to the place you're at.

And Extra-terrestrial just means "one too many people" - they're extra!

don't you love fun facts?

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markhawkman

lilchibiclari wrote: »

wombat140 wrote: »

from the article wrote:

Basically, if the signal was beamed out into the galaxy without aim or direction, that would require an enormous amount of power to actually be detected. But what if the signal was beamed specifically at our solar system? Well, that would require less energy and could indicate the presence of a Kardashev Type I civilization—meaning that it could be a highly technological, contemporary society that harnesses the solar energy emitted by its local star, much like our planet does with solar panels. This particular civilization’s social structure is theorized to be completely globalized and interconnected.

Where did that last sentence come from? Based on one single signal that they don't even feel sure is genuine yet, let alone what it means? "Is theorized", indeed. Using the passive voice won't conceal the fact that "is theorized" just means "a starry-eyed SETI underling speculated in my hearing"!

Basically, you can't channel a planet's entire energy output to a single endeavour (implied if a Type I civilization were sending the signal) if you have your planet divided up between rival societies who do not all agree to combine their outputs on the project.

Still hypothetical. Do we know that ALL of them were required?

lilchibiclari

markhawkman wrote: »

Still hypothetical. Do we know that ALL of them were required?

If they are not combining all of their planet-based energy output, then the only way that they could achieve the measured signal strength would be an enormous kilometers-wide space-based antenna powered by at least a thousand terawatts of non-planetary-based energy (i.e. solar or fusion)

markhawkman

lilchibiclari wrote: »

markhawkman wrote: »

Still hypothetical. Do we know that ALL of them were required?

If they are not combining all of their planet-based energy output, then the only way that they could achieve the measured signal strength would be an enormous kilometers-wide space-based antenna powered by at least a thousand terawatts of non-planetary-based energy (i.e. solar or fusion)

Point was that X amount of power is required and can be achieved through multiple methods. Thus extrapolations of the social status of the responsible party are pretty futile.

wombat140

@lilchibiclari , how are you working out those estimates of how much power would be required? I don't recall them, or other facts and figures that they could be calculated from (e.g. the distance to the star), being mentioned in the article. Have you found another one that gives more data?

smokebailey

wendysue53 wrote: »

This article sounds like the signal Tesla was investigating.

The Black Knight

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