Alien Megastructure... or just something we haven't thought of yet?

[Jimmy Higgins]

link

That’s when Wright, the astronomer from Penn State University and his colleague Andrew Siemion, the Director of SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) got involved. Now the possibility that the objects were created by intelligent creatures is being taken very seriously by the team.

As civilisations become more technologically advanced, they create new and better ways of collecting energy — with the end result being the harnessing of energy directly from their star. If the speculation about a megastructure being placed around the star system is correct, it could for instance be a huge set of solar panels placed around the star, scientists say.


The three astronomers want to point a radio dish at the star to look for wavelengths associated with technological civilisations. And the first observations could be ready to take place as early as January, with follow-up observations potentially coming even quicker.

Interesting stuff. Most likely just some natural explanation, though the alternative is wickedly insanely awesome. But most likely something not so exciting.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Good thing they're 1500 light years away.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

That's way too close!
How long would it take for a civilization just a few million years ahead of ours to cover that distance? And how about building a telescope big enough to tell the composition of Earth's atmosphere?
If they're into interstellar travel, they're already here!

Seriously, here's another link:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astr...are_a_bit_baffling.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_ru

 

[skepticalbip]

I predict that the "OH MY GOD, WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE" crowd will be all over this with their blogs. I wonder if they will link it to the "Black Knight" with claims that it was aliens from that system that sent it to keep and eye on us.

Interesting link, Jimmy. Thanks for posting it.

 

[thebeave]

Just in case, I'll be wearing a butt plug for the forseeable future.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Just in case, I'll be wearing a butt plug for the forseeable future.

Yes, because a remarkably advanced race of aliens wouldn't know how to remove a butt plug.

 

[thebeave]

Just in case, I'll be wearing a butt plug for the forseeable future.

Yes, because a remarkably advanced race of aliens wouldn't know how to remove a butt plug.

I think you're right.

On the other hand, if they are remarkably advanced they'd be wise enough not to go "down there" in the first place. So, maybe I'll be OK afterall.

 

[skepticalbip]

Yes, because a remarkably advanced race of aliens wouldn't know how to remove a butt plug.

I think you're right.

On the other hand, if they are remarkably advanced they'd be wise enough not to go "down there" in the first place. So, maybe I'll be OK afterall.

I doubt that it was their advanced knowledge of butts and butt plugs that made them a space faring race. I always thought that the reason they had such a thing for anal probing is that they don't have an anus and were trying to figure out what the hell it was for. So maybe your butt plug would really confuse them since they had no technical knowledge of such things (not having butt plugs themselves) so couldn't figure out how to remove it. Maybe your butt plug is worth a try.

 

[Kharakov]

Yes, because a remarkably advanced race of aliens wouldn't know how to remove a butt plug.

I think you're right.

On the other hand, if they are remarkably advanced they'd be wise enough not to go "down there" in the first place. So, maybe I'll be OK afterall.

Ehh.. alien metasitic organisms love to go there.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That's way too close!
How long would it take for a civilization just a few million years ahead of ours to cover that distance? And how about building a telescope big enough to tell the composition of Earth's atmosphere?
If they're into interstellar travel, they're already here!

Seriously, here's another link:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astr...are_a_bit_baffling.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_ru

Which is why I don't think there are any ETs out there--even if they have something akin to the Prime Directive there's no way they'll hide their radio emissions from us.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

That's way too close!
How long would it take for a civilization just a few million years ahead of ours to cover that distance? And how about building a telescope big enough to tell the composition of Earth's atmosphere?
If they're into interstellar travel, they're already here!

Seriously, here's another link:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astr...are_a_bit_baffling.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_ru

Which is why I don't think there are any ETs out there--even if they have something akin to the Prime Directive there's no way they'll hide their radio emissions from us.

I'm not sure how you got to that conclusion. I wasn't trying to make that case.

If you're talking about detecting them from 1500 light years away (or more, in the case of other stars), I don't know that we would have at this point detected them even from much smaller distances, even if they're not hiding them. Plus, they may hide them not from us in particular, but from any potentially dangerous advanced civilization out there.

If you're talking about detecting any transmissions that an outpost in our solar system (keeping an eye on Earth for threat assessment and, if needed, management; this of course is far less probable than the existence of some alien civilizations -I'm just considering it due to the context of your reply), they might be careful...or the outpost might be an AI, not sending communications except when needed - if at all.

 

[bilby]

If an EXACT copy of our Solar System, with a copy of our Earth, our technology, and our SETI efforts, radio frequency broadcasts, etc. existed just fifty light years away, then we would almost certainly be unaware of each other.

Our radio noise just isn't loud enough to be detectable to an equal civilisation at such a distance. IF we knew exactly where to look, and put all of our SETI resources into that one star, then we might, if we were very lucky, be able to detect signals from the most powerful of the Cold War Radar installations. Maybe.

Space is huge. We are tiny. Most of our transmissions are optimised for short ranges, and aimed at the planet, not out into space. Only things like the DEW radars were designed to send powerful signals in the direction of outer space, and operated for a reasonable number of years (and even then, a couple of decades isn't really long enough - when the transit time for a signal is longer than the duration of the signal, you need to be very lucky to catch it at all. What radio noise is detectable from Earth today, at this 1,500 light year range? Are the aliens rocking out to Dark Ages radio, and lamenting the collapse of the Roman Empire? We stopped using DEW after less than 50 years; What will we still be broadcasting in the year 3500?). Modern systems are less easily detectable, for both efficiency and tactical reasons; One-off signals, such as the one sent from Arecibo in 1974, have almost no chance of detection - and if they were detected, without being repeated would be about as inconclusive as the 'Wow' signal.

Aliens don't need to hide their radio transmissions from us - we likely would miss even transmissions that they were positively trying to get us to notice.

 

[fast]

We should just go out there and look. First, we need a big ship that can harness some rather extreme energy. The problem of accelleration can be solved with an internal smaller device about the size of a small ship creating gravity to offset the problem. The traveling faster than the speed of light issue can be circumvented with some nifty space curvature stuff. Yeah, we can do this.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Which is why I don't think there are any ETs out there--even if they have something akin to the Prime Directive there's no way they'll hide their radio emissions from us.

I'm not sure how you got to that conclusion. I wasn't trying to make that case.

If you're talking about detecting them from 1500 light years away (or more, in the case of other stars), I don't know that we would have at this point detected them even from much smaller distances, even if they're not hiding them. Plus, they may hide them not from us in particular, but from any potentially dangerous advanced civilization out there.

If you're talking about detecting any transmissions that an outpost in our solar system (keeping an eye on Earth for threat assessment and, if needed, management; this of course is far less probable than the existence of some alien civilizations -I'm just considering it due to the context of your reply), they might be careful...or the outpost might be an AI, not sending communications except when needed - if at all.

They wouldn't be 1500 light years away, though--anybody doing mega engineering in space has the ability to do an interstellar trip. There would be colonization expeditions. If you figure travel at 1% of lightspeed (within the range of an unboosted solar sail or Orion) and 1000 years before a colony sends out a colony ship you get a spread velocity of about 1ly/300 years. At that rate they will have colonized any part of the galaxy they want (but not the surrounding globular clusters) in 30 million years.

- - - Updated - - -

Our radio noise just isn't loud enough to be detectable to an equal civilisation at such a distance. IF we knew exactly where to look, and put all of our SETI resources into that one star, then we might, if we were very lucky, be able to detect signals from the most powerful of the Cold War Radar installations. Maybe.

I'm not talking about detecting specific transmissions like the DEW line radars. Rather, I'm saying the total radio energy emitted will be way too high. That doesn't let you listen in but it lets you know there's something of interest.

 

[skepticalbip]

Our radio noise just isn't loud enough to be detectable to an equal civilisation at such a distance. IF we knew exactly where to look, and put all of our SETI resources into that one star, then we might, if we were very lucky, be able to detect signals from the most powerful of the Cold War Radar installations. Maybe.

I'm not talking about detecting specific transmissions like the DEW line radars. Rather, I'm saying the total radio energy emitted will be way too high. That doesn't let you listen in but it lets you know there's something of interest.

Nope unless they are putting out orders of magnitude more RF energy than Earth's total. The RF signals from Earth are swamped by the Sun's output. At 10LY from Earth, our RF signature (except for very high energy, highly directional signals) is down in the noise of background radiation. If you remember the old pre-digital broadcast TVs then you have heard and seen that background noise when you tried to watch a TV station only 30 or 40 miles away. It swamped even a 50KW broadcast only a few tens of miles away.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

They wouldn't be 1500 light years away, though--anybody doing mega engineering in space has the ability to do an interstellar trip. There would be colonization expeditions. If you figure travel at 1% of lightspeed (within the range of an unboosted solar sail or Orion) and 1000 years before a colony sends out a colony ship you get a spread velocity of about 1ly/300 years. At that rate they will have colonized any part of the galaxy they want (but not the surrounding globular clusters) in 30 million years.

I was going by more conservative estimates (like .001c and 1 million years). But in any case, your estimates assume they're interested in large-scale colonization.
Maybe they only want to colonize a few planetary systems just for increased chances of survival of their civilization, and have AI in other planetary systems to keep an eye on everyone else just in case (i.e., to prevent hostile advanced civilizations from arising). But then, maybe even the colonization of a few planetary systems is unnecessary - just small outposts there, capable of growing if needed, will do.
We don't really know what the aliens may want. Your argument seems to work against the existence of advanced aliens with some specific sorts of minds. But the chances of other aliens do not appear to be strongly affected.

 

[bilby]

They wouldn't be 1500 light years away, though--anybody doing mega engineering in space has the ability to do an interstellar trip. There would be colonization expeditions. If you figure travel at 1% of lightspeed (within the range of an unboosted solar sail or Orion) and 1000 years before a colony sends out a colony ship you get a spread velocity of about 1ly/300 years. At that rate they will have colonized any part of the galaxy they want (but not the surrounding globular clusters) in 30 million years.

I was going by more conservative estimates (like .001c and 1 million years). But in any case, your estimates assume they're interested in large-scale colonization.
Maybe they only want to colonize a few planetary systems just for increased chances of survival of their civilization, and have AI in other planetary systems to keep an eye on everyone else just in case (i.e., to prevent hostile advanced civilizations from arising). But then, maybe even the colonization of a few planetary systems is unnecessary - just small outposts there, capable of growing if needed, will do.
We don't really know what the aliens may want. Your argument seems to work against the existence of advanced aliens with some specific sorts of minds. But the chances of other aliens do not appear to be strongly affected.

The only technological life form I have ever come across has very little interest in anything in space further away than low orbit around their home-world. What little effort they have put in to go further is almost all concentrated in the slightly higher geostationary orbit; they have made some desultory attempts to examine the closest celestial body in person, and have sent a small number of automated probes to other planets in the system; and have launched a literal handful of probes at solar escape velocity - only two of which have even reached the edge of their Solar System.

At this rate, the chances of them getting funding to explore in detail the nearest planet to their own (much less any nearby stars) seem slim; Interstellar probes that have the potential to seed colonies in other solar systems seem not to be on the cards at all, even after tens of thousands of years of technological development.

 

[barbos]

Comets being disturbed by nearby star (which actually present) are way better explanation, from scientific point of view.

 

[barbos]

as for radiosignals then if you to sent New Horizons to this star (1500 l.y) you will need a dish 200,000 km in diameter to receive the signals from there.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

They wouldn't be 1500 light years away, though--anybody doing mega engineering in space has the ability to do an interstellar trip.

Do they? Aren't we still limited by physics? Doing large scale local projects is one thing. Being able to travel 0.01 times the speed of light in a machine that isn't destroyed in the process? The energy required and the issues of traveling in a near but not quite a true vacuum are issues that can't just be hand waved.