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What happens if a signal is found?


Hazzard

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One question raised about signals from ET is the practicalities of overcoming the vast distances involved. The time needed to receive and return a message.

It is often assumed that a first signal would contain only basic information, once decoded.

But what if a signal was much more informative? What is to stop ET sending the sum knowledge of their civilisation? It would eliminate the time lag for the recipient of a signal.

From a human perspective this might be considered reckless and potentially counter productive.

This would only be the case if the knowledge could be used against the sender; if travelling between stars is not viable then ET would be safe and not worried about equipping a potentially dangerous race with their latest tech.  

Even if faster interstellar travel is possible ET might still not be worried.

An unstable race receiving very high tech info could well end up using it on themselves before ever managing to escape their own star system. Sending such a message could provide enough rope for the receivers to hang themselves.

This would be a much safer way of eliminating troublesome locals.

So perhaps if we do receive a signal it is this type we should expect?

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1 hour ago, L.A.T.1961 said:

One question raised about signals from ET is the practicalities of overcoming the vast distances involved. The time needed to receive and return a message.

It is often assumed that a first signal would contain only basic information, once decoded.

But what if a signal was much more informative? What is to stop ET sending the sum knowledge of their civilisation? It would eliminate the time lag for the recipient of a signal.

From a human perspective this might be considered reckless and potentially counter productive.

This would only be the case if the knowledge could be used against the sender; if travelling between stars is not viable then ET would be safe and not worried about equipping a potentially dangerous race with their latest tech.  

Even if faster interstellar travel is possible ET might still not be worried.

An unstable race receiving very high tech info could well end up using it on themselves before ever managing to escape their own star system. Sending such a message could provide enough rope for the receivers to hang themselves.

This would be a much safer way of eliminating troublesome locals.

So perhaps if we do receive a signal it is this type we should expect?

Carl Sagan, along with early SETI pioneer Philip Morrison, recommended that the newest children in a strange and uncertain cosmos should listen quietly for a long time, patiently learning about the universe and comparing notes, before shouting into an unknown jungle that we do not fully understand. Maybe they were right. Maybe we shouldnt have....?

Oh well, its to late anyway. These projects have targeted stars between 17 and 69 light-years from the Earth. (except for the Aracebo: 24 000 ly away)

 

Stars to which messages were sent, are the following 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_SETI#Transmissions 

Edited by Hazzard
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17 hours ago, Manwon Lender said:

Here a link to a discovery of a small metal sphere that was collected from the upper atmosphere. It has a Titanium shell filled with a strange material containing DNA. The question is where did it come from, the scientist beleive it came from outer space, because it impacted on their collector and left a small impact crater. 

https://marketbusinessnews.com/tiny-ball-filled-dna-alien-seed-life/48500/

Fringe screwball. :yes: 

And the picture is not a "hollow sphere of metal" It's either some sort of droplet or a grain of something.

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20 hours ago, Piney said:

Metals are only formed by a binary supernova. If there was no nearby binary supernova during the formation of our solar system we wouldn't of had many of the elements needed for life.

@Earl.Of.Trumps  Tholins.  The reddish brown stuff all over comets and ice planets and moons. That's the material that kick starts life. 

We have records of 4 type Ia supernoavae in our galaxy, occurring over approximately 1500 years (185 to 1604 C.E.) That works out to an average of one every ~375 years. That would make for 1,000,000 of them every 375 million years, or 10 million in 3 billion,750 million years.  It seems that most of the galaxy would have been saturated with their metallic outfall. 

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20 hours ago, Piney said:

Read them all, Piney, thanks.

Supernova Trouble

In 1957, the physicists Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge, William Fowler and Fred Hoyle laid out a set of recipes for how the lives and deaths of stars could fill in almost every slot in the periodic table. That implied that humans, or at least the elements making up our bodies, were once stardust. So was gold — somehow.

So we may be stardust after all

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3 hours ago, Piney said:

Fringe screwball. :yes: 

And the picture is not a "hollow sphere of metal" It's either some sort of droplet or a grain of something.

Yea, I kinda figured that out, never to late to learn.

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If it happened, it would probably be a lot like that Independence Day movie.

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19 hours ago, Hazzard said:

A little bit back on topic here... 

So far, scientists have detected about 60 single fast radio bursts and two that repeat. Thereare a number of theories about what could be causing them. "It just seems completely inconceivable that there could be that many different alien civilisations all deciding to produce the same kind of signal in the same way - that just seems highly improbable.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46825450

 

 

I agree, its impossible to say for certain. We as species know so little about our Universe that until they get a signal that says hello all they can do is continue to monitor them. In fact they don't even know exactly where the signals are originating from. So while this is interesting, we still have a long way to go.

But I do want to say I don't think they are wasting their time, sooner or later I think they will find something that can't be over looked.

JIMO

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I dare say, as soon as the signal is received, a request to sign up for a subscription, to hear more, will be up front.

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17 hours ago, L.A.T.1961 said:

One question raised about signals from ET is the practicalities of overcoming the vast distances involved. The time needed to receive and return a message.

It is often assumed that a first signal would contain only basic information, once decoded.

But what if a signal was much more informative? What is to stop ET sending the sum knowledge of their civilisation? It would eliminate the time lag for the recipient of a signal.

From a human perspective this might be considered reckless and potentially counter productive.

This would only be the case if the knowledge could be used against the sender; if travelling between stars is not viable then ET would be safe and not worried about equipping a potentially dangerous race with their latest tech.  

Even if faster interstellar travel is possible ET might still not be worried.

An unstable race receiving very high tech info could well end up using it on themselves before ever managing to escape their own star system. Sending such a message could provide enough rope for the receivers to hang themselves.

This would be a much safer way of eliminating troublesome locals.

So perhaps if we do receive a signal it is this type we should expect?

Dr Steven Hawking makes a very important point. He thinks we should not be in a hurry to make contact, because it could tell them where we are and that may be a very bad day for Earth. It seems that people think an advanced race is going to be benevolent and want to help us. However, it's very possible they may not be, nothing proves this either way but it is a fact that most likely they do not think the same way about things that we do, they didn't grow up in our society.

Just like the space movies we grew up watching, everyone no matter how advanced isn't always the good guy.

JIMO

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What I would like to see scientists do is - calculate the distance from the signal's origin, and see how much energy would be required to send a signal that Is received that distance away as strong as was detected. 

I bet they find that the signal would have to have been so strong that energy to generate such a signal could only be explained by stellar activity. Nature repeats, witness the "Old Faithful" geyser.

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6 hours ago, Manwon Lender said:

Dr Steven Hawking makes a very important point. He thinks we should not be in a hurry to make contact, because it could tell them where we are and that may be a very bad day for Earth. It seems that people think an advanced race is going to be benevolent and want to help us. However, it's very possible they may not be, nothing proves this either way but it is a fact that most likely they do not think the same way about things that we do, they didn't grow up in our society.

Just like the space movies we grew up watching, everyone no matter how advanced isn't always the good guy.

JIMO

As we only have an example of one its hard to say for sure. But I can understand professor Hawkings concern about "shouting in the jungle"... 

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4 hours ago, Earl.Of.Trumps said:

What I would like to see scientists do is - calculate the distance from the signal's origin, and see how much energy would be required to send a signal that Is received that distance away as strong as was detected. 

I bet they find that the signal would have to have been so strong that energy to generate such a signal could only be explained by stellar activity. Nature repeats, witness the "Old Faithful" geyser.

Are you saying that if the signal is strong enough to reach us it cant be made by ET?

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On 8/17/2019 at 5:08 PM, Earl.Of.Trumps said:

Read them all, Piney, thanks.

Supernova Trouble

In 1957, the physicists Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge, William Fowler and Fred Hoyle laid out a set of recipes for how the lives and deaths of stars could fill in almost every slot in the periodic table. That implied that humans, or at least the elements making up our bodies, were once stardust. So was gold — somehow.

So we may be stardust after all

It has more recently come to light that stars are not powerful enough to produce the heavier elements seen. The detection of gravity waves showed that it takes neutron star collisions to form gold.

https://www.livescience.com/60701-ligo-neutron-stars-heavy-metals-gold.html

Quote

An international team of astronomers detected the first gravitational waves from merging neutron stars, and found proof they are the source of the universe's heavy elements, including gold and platinum.

So  it turns out that the physicists were not quite correct.

If you read further down into the article that was linked to we see that it became apparent that the previously theorized element formation was not going to work.

Quote

But as supernova models got more and more sophisticated, the situation got worse, not better. Temperatures in the neutrino-driven wind didn’t seem to be high enough. The wind might also be too slow, allowing seed nuclei to form so abundantly that they wouldn’t find enough neutrons to build up heavy elements all the way up to uranium. And the neutrinos could also convert neutrons back into protons — meaning there might not even be a lot of neutrons to work with.

What is really interesting are current theories on the formation of lithium.

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 Korpela explained what sort of signal qualities would convince astronomers that they’re dealing with possible extraterrestrial intelligence:

We believe a signal when

-- It is persistent. It appears at the same spot in the sky in multiple observations.

— It only comes from one spot in the sky.

— If we reobserve the target, the signal is still there.

 

Things that add to believability

— Its frequency/period/delay does not correspond to known interference.

— Its Doppler Drift rate indicates that it is exactly frequency stable in the frame of the center of mass of the solar system

— Its properties (bandwidth, chirp rate, encoding) indicate intelligent origin.

https://www.vox.com/2016/8/30/12709286/seti-signal-aliens-hd164595

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12 hours ago, stereologist said:

It has more recently come to light that stars are not powerful enough to produce the heavier elements seen. The detection of gravity waves showed that it takes neutron star collisions to form gold.

that's nice but neutron stars are still stars. one of the most common elements in asteroids is gold so somehow there is goodly supply of it.

12 hours ago, stereologist said:

https://www.livescience.com/60701-ligo-neutron-stars-heavy-metals-gold.html

So  it turns out that the physicists were not quite correct.

If you read further down into the article that was linked to we see that it became apparent that the previously theorized element formation was not going to work.

What is really interesting are current theories on the formation of lithium.

I thought lithium was primordial - one of the three elements 

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3 hours ago, Hazzard said:

 Korpela explained what sort of signal qualities would convince astronomers that they’re dealing with possible extraterrestrial intelligence:

We believe a signal when

-- It is persistent. It appears at the same spot in the sky in multiple observations.

— It only comes from one spot in the sky.

— If we reobserve the target, the signal is still there.

 

Things that add to believability

— Its frequency/period/delay does not correspond to known interference.

— Its Doppler Drift rate indicates that it is exactly frequency stable in the frame of the center of mass of the solar system

— Its properties (bandwidth, chirp rate, encoding) indicate intelligent origin.

https://www.vox.com/2016/8/30/12709286/seti-signal-aliens-hd164595

Nature can be tricky. Observe the periodicity of the "Old Faithful" geyser - an eruption every 44 to 125 minutes since 2000.

What ever produced that signal had to be extremely powerful. *possible* to be intelligent life, but I have my doubts on multiple fronts

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3 hours ago, Earl.Of.Trumps said:

that's nice but neutron stars are still stars. one of the most common elements in asteroids is gold so somehow there is goodly supply of it.

I thought lithium was primordial - one of the three elements 

Neutron stars are stars but do not go supernova. They are the remnants of such events.

Lithium is interesting in that it is not stable  in stars. It changes to other elements. It seems that the formation of lithium happens during star explosions, not supernova.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/most-lithium-universe-forged-exploding-stars-180961009/

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On 8/17/2019 at 11:08 PM, Earl.Of.Trumps said:

Read them all, Piney, thanks.

Supernova Trouble

In 1957, the physicists Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge, William Fowler and Fred Hoyle laid out a set of recipes for how the lives and deaths of stars could fill in almost every slot in the periodic table. That implied that humans, or at least the elements making up our bodies, were once stardust. So was gold — somehow.

So we may be stardust after all

I have no doubts that is true

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On 8/19/2019 at 12:13 PM, Hazzard said:

 Korpela explained what sort of signal qualities would convince astronomers that they’re dealing with possible extraterrestrial intelligence:

  1. -- It is persistent. It appears at the same spot in the sky in multiple observations.
  2. — It only comes from one spot in the sky.
  3. — If we reobserve the target, the signal is still there.
  4. — Its frequency/period/delay does not correspond to known interference.
  5. — Its Doppler Drift rate indicates that it is exactly frequency stable in the frame of the center of mass of the solar system
  6. — Its properties (bandwidth, chirp rate, encoding) indicate intelligent origin.

 

So off of that list, the Wow! signal seems to meet criteria (my numbering) 2, 4 and partly 6 (on bandwidth but not chirp or encoding)

The repeating Fast Radio Bursts meet 1, 2, 3 (albeit only twice), 4.

Here's a random prediction. Big Data / machine learning / A.I. whatever you want to call it, will in time pick out patterns in the astronomical data that we can't see or just haven't noticed yet. 

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On 8/19/2019 at 3:26 PM, Earl.Of.Trumps said:

Nature can be tricky. Observe the periodicity of the "Old Faithful" geyser - an eruption every 44 to 125 minutes since 2000.

What ever produced that signal had to be extremely powerful. *possible* to be intelligent life, but I have my doubts on multiple fronts

It would seem terribly wasteful energy wise for any civilisation to engage in creating FRBs - which suggests to me that they are natural. The dispersion issue mentioned in the BBC article is on point too.

Speculating wildly - if FRBs were being caused intelligently, then this could only be because it was the standard way of doing something that multiple civilisations find useful and are engaging in in different galaxies (or a single giant civilisation surrounds us stretching across multiple galaxies).  

I've seen people suggest that FRBs could be the signature of a form of transport being triggered. Another darker explanation might be that this is the signature of a standard way to wage war once a certain tech level is reached. You don't invade the planet per Independence Day - you just blow up the local star. 

Edited by Not Invented Here
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7 hours ago, Hazzard said:

Good find, Hazzard.  gold and other r-process elements created. I believe they now have accountability for all the elements.

a bit of confusion here as to how they word this "This one collision created at least 10 Earths’ worth of gold."
are they saying gold created in the equivalent to the mass of 10 earths, or gold created in the amount of gold in ten earths?

I'm suspecting the former. Because if it is the latter, they better come up with another way to make gold lol, there's way too much of it to consider it only to be made by the collision of two stars, a rare event

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Thing is, maybe alien civilizations have been sending signals for years and years, thing is maybe we do not have the technology to pick up/understand those signals. Maybe there are there but we can't detect them. Who knows right?
Like others have said, even tho we could pick up something positive the distance...the ol' mighty distance, it ruins pretty much everything. It would be fascinating tho. 

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