Not a Drill: SETI Is Investigating a Possible Extraterrestrial Signal From Deep Space

[YellowSubmarine]

I seriously doubt that. There's not even the shadow of a hint in fundamental Physics that we could ever do something like that.

That would be incorrect. The less massive version of Project Orion was estimated to get you to Alpha Centauri in 133 years at the cost of $367 billion with 50000t payload. And that's not even close to the limits of the laws of physics, though it might be close – or even beyond – the practical limits.

 

[BillJ]

I know this is a poor thing for me to say about most of the other humans of the Western world, but if there isn't some kind of instant gratification to the process they simply won't care and won't support it.

If anyone can pull off an interstellar flight, it will probably be the Chinese. That's if they don't fall down the capitalist rabbit hole too quickly.

 

[locutus101]

That would be incorrect. The less massive version of Project Orion was estimated to get you to Alpha Centauri in 133 years at the cost of $367 billion with 50000t payload. And that's not even close to the limits of the laws of physics, though it might be close – or even beyond – the practical limits.

I am sorry, I didn't take into account some random bullshit concocted by a bunch of utopists of the 1950s. Remember that back then they also believed that by 1970 we would have a permanent base on the moon and condominiums on Mars in 1990!

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Well, you've managed to rack up 20 pages discussing a lot of things. But in the meantime, the rest of the scientific community decided it was a signal of terrestrial origin

Did they? Far as I can tell that's only a spurious conclusion drawn from a single Russian newspaper based on evidence that isn't actually relevant to this case. Has there been more information since that early report?

ETA: the SETI researchers added this:

An article that quotes the Russian news agency TASS is suggesting that the signal found using the Russian RATAN-600 radio telescope is, indeed, terrestrial interference. The article, which can be found here – http://tass.com/science/896683 -- says in part “Director of the Institute of Applied Astronomy at the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Ipatov told TASS that back at the Soviet period he had been part of a group of young astronomers at the special astrophysical observatory searching for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. ‘We, indeed, discovered an unusual signal. However, an additional check showed that it was emanating from a Soviet military satellite, which had not been entered into any of the catalogs of celestial bodies,’ Ipatov said.”

As noted in the accompanying write-up, we have been unable to find this signal using our Allen Telescope Array. That would be consistent, of course, with it being terrestrial interference, such as a military satellite. However, there seems to be some contradiction in the Russian response quoted above, as the signal was labeled as being measured in May, 2015, long after the demise of the Soviet Union.

Later today, a statement from the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences was made:https://www.sao.ru/Doc-en/SciNews/2016/Sotnikova/ The statement concludes with this sentence: “It can be said with confidence that no sought-for signal has been detected yet.”

So to clarify: "the rest of the scientific community" didn't identify it as a military satellite. They didn't identify it AT ALL.

They're saying it's PROBABLY a military satellite because that explanation makes as much sense if not more than anything else. There's no way to confirm one way or the other because further scans of the start in question found no evidence of a signal, and the detection hasn't been repeated by any other radio telescope since then. The MOST LIKELY explanation is that a satellite using an X-band mapping radar happened to pass right over the telescope and swept the beam across its antenna. The only time that signal would be repeated is if the same satellite did the exact same thing over the same telescope or over another one while it was active. The chances of that ACCIDENTALLY happening are very very small.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I am sorry, I didn't take into account some random bullshit concocted by a bunch of utopists of the 1950s. Remember that back then they also believed that by 1970 we would have a permanent base on the moon and condominiums on Mars in 1990!

"Shadow of a hint in fundamental physics" that certainly is.

But "dooable by any reasonable cost estimate or using any known technology" is another story entirely. Someone advanced enough and bored enough could probably pull it off, but trying to imagine the kind of society or the kind of economy that would even support that kind of expenditure is a whole other can of worms.

Maybe the X-band signal was just a radio pulse as the Moties finally launch their Crazy Eddie probe?

 

[YellowSubmarine]

I know this is a poor thing for me to say about most of the other humans of the Western world, but if there isn't some kind of instant gratification to the process they simply won't care and won't support it.

If anyone can pull off an interstellar flight, it will probably be the Chinese. That's if they don't fall down the capitalist rabbit hole too quickly.

It was more a question of would some of the hypothetical aliens in our galaxy do it often, and if many have done it, where are they? Those that did it would defy any comparison with the Western world and China anyway, yet there is so far no evidence of them anywhere in our neighbourhood. So either they aren't doing it, or they aren't in our galaxy, or our listening equipment is total crap.

As for us, we're talking about timeframes of hundreds of thousands of years. In timespans of 50 thousand years it's not unthinkable for us to find the money twice for an, admittedly, quite humongous mission. The people who do that wouldn't even be speaking a language that exists at present, so our political situation wouldn't be an obstacle – theirs might be though. But we have done a lot of crazy things in the last 5 thousand years alone. I think a bigger obstacle might be if our civilisation wouldn't face a drastic downfall until then.

 

[BillJ]

As for us, we're talking about timeframes of hundreds of thousands of years. In timespans of 50 thousand years it's not unthinkable for us to find the money twice for an, admittedly, quite humongous mission. The people who do that wouldn't even be speaking a language that exists at present, so our political situation wouldn't be an obstacle – theirs might be though. But we have done a lot of crazy things in the last 5 thousand years alone. I think a bigger obstacle might be if our civilisation wouldn't face a drastic downfall until then.

Fermi may well be right, and the universe is teeming with civilizations. Just because we don't have the means to detect them, doesn't mean they don't exist.

Maybe we'll make it someday, maybe we won't. But I think our interstellar dreams are likely hundreds, if not thousands, of years down the road.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Fermi may well be right, and the universe is teeming with civilizations. Just because we don't have the means to detect them, doesn't mean they don't exist.

Maybe we'll make it someday, maybe we won't. But I think our interstellar dreams are likely hundreds, if not thousands, of years down the road.

Yeah....

It's gonna be a long road.



Gettin' to there from here.

 

[locutus101]

If there are civilizations in the universe and we have no way of knowing about them, then from our point of view it makes absolutely no difference. They may as well not exist at all.

 

[Warp Core Breach]

Did they? Far as I can tell that's only a spurious conclusion drawn from a single Russian newspaper based on evidence that isn't actually relevant to this case. Has there been more information since that early report?

ETA: the SETI researchers added this:


So to clarify: "the rest of the scientific community" didn't identify it as a military satellite. They didn't identify it AT ALL.

They're saying it's PROBABLY a military satellite because that explanation makes as much sense if not more than anything else. There's no way to confirm one way or the other because further scans of the start in question found no evidence of a signal, and the detection hasn't been repeated by any other radio telescope since then. The MOST LIKELY explanation is that a satellite using an X-band mapping radar happened to pass right over the telescope and swept the beam across its antenna. The only time that signal would be repeated is if the same satellite did the exact same thing over the same telescope or over another one while it was active. The chances of that ACCIDENTALLY happening are very very small.

Okay then.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

If there are civilizations in the universe and we have no way of knowing about them, then from our point of view it makes absolutely no difference. They may as well not exist at all.

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[locutus101]

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I guess so.

 

[ancient]

We are equally likely to be the 1st as we are to be the millionth. The universe only became livable by our standards recently - on a cosmic scale.

I know this is a poor thing for me to say about most of the other humans of the Western world, but if there isn't some kind of instant gratification to the process they simply won't care and won't support it.

This is too nihilist imo. If this were true, we'd still be in the dark ages.

If anyone can pull off an interstellar flight, it will probably be the Chinese.

The Chinese are too busy burning resources & trying to steal 50 year old American technology to desperately keep up with their population's basic needs. Maybe Saudi Arabia, They have the money-mountain & free time on their hands.

That's if they don't fall down the capitalist rabbit hole too quickly

You mean like the capitalist countries that are responsible for nearly 100% of the significant scientific achievements that have ever happened? Yeah...what?

I am sorry, I didn't take into account some random bullshit concocted by a bunch of utopists of the 1950s. Remember that back then they also believed that by 1970 we would have a permanent base on the moon and condominiums on Mars in 1990!

I can't wait to see the advancements we'll have in the far distant future of 1999!

 

[locutus101]

....
I can't wait to see the advancements we'll have in the far distant future of 1999!

As Kor would say: "It will be glorious!"

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

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[publiusr]

I suspect it's a cock-up rather than a conspiracy. The military of any country don't like to give information away, .

It isn't the first time the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

That would be incorrect. The less massive version of Project Orion was estimated to get you to Alpha Centauri in 133 years at the cost of $367 billion with 50000t payload. And that's not even close to the limits of the laws of physics, though it might be close – or even beyond – the practical limits.

I am sorry, I didn't take into account some random bullshit concocted by a bunch of utopists of the 1950s. Remember that back then they also believed that by 1970 we would have a permanent base on the moon and condominiums on Mars in 1990!

Had they not killed the Saturns--that could well have been the case.

The idea of building larger LVs causes anger in a lot of folks. People hate on SLS--Orion would be larger and more expensive--and have the anti-nukes out in force. Like how Kaku and others panicked over Cassini. Now its all about cubesats. Ugh.

Yes. That seems a likely explanation to me for the Fermi Paradox as I've stated in other threads -

Now, this may be BS but I'm going to posit a possible answer to the Fermi paradox.

Ground clutter.

Ever seen how radars have trouble with anything too closer to a city center?

We have an Oort cloud--all kinds of debris--and a heliosphere with a hydrogen wall:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliosphere#Hydrogen_wall

Is is possible that SETI signals are all around us--but attenuated by all this crap?

Maybe another reason to go extra-solar---to put big dishes outside of all this ground clutter.

I would love to go to Proxima just to be able to turn around and see what our Solar System really looks like from the outside.

It might look more messy than we imagine. A real car wreck.

Aliens look at that--and keep going.

If we could fund Orion, one goal might be to put a SETI instalation there, and see if we can hear Earth. Get it dialed in to where you can--then link Proxima and Sol into a hell of a very large array. That's the real use of Proxima to us--the other half of our binoculars.

If you don't hear anything then, that's how we know that we really are alone
(in this side of the galaxy at least.)

 

[psCargile]

Is is possible that SETI signals are all around us--but attenuated by all this crap?

Wouldn't that effect radio astronomy?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

There's nothing believed to be particularly unusual about the "clutter" of Kuiper belt and Oort cloud objects in the outer most regions of the solar system. Like the asteroid belt (and unlike the usual TV and movie depictions of such), these regions are virtually 100% empty of any large objects -- there's an awful lot of space that is inhabited by not very much mass. The attenuation of radio waves or other parts of the EM spectrum is effectively nil as attested in part by astronomical observation and by signals received from Pioneers 10 and 11, Voyagers 1 and 2, and now New Horizons. We have difficulty detecting any bodies in the outer regions, and have yet to observe the proposed 10 x Earth's mass ice planet that is supposedly lurking out there.

 

[Doom Shepherd]

There's only one problem. If you send say one hundred people you'll have to pack one hundred thousand lifetimes worth of rations with them!

Or a garden.

You know, to a water-breathing species, dry land is a dangerous and inhospitable place, hardly worth the huge price in energy and lives and lifetimes it would take to ever explore it.

And yet, here we are, totally not fish.

 

[locutus101]

Or a garden.

You know, to a water-breathing species, dry land is a dangerous and inhospitable place, hardly worth the huge price in energy and lives and lifetimes it would take to ever explore it.

And yet, here we are, totally not fish.

You understand how evolution works, don't you? It takes thousands of generations to make the slightest progress one way or the other and more often than not it gets into an evolutionary impasse. You seem to believe that it's something species pre-plan millions of years in advance. Just to give you an example, there are only two percent of our genome that differs from that of chimpanzees, yet our two species diverged about ten million years ago.