It seems a possible extra-galactic signal has been detected.
There is a good New Scientist article on the subject here: “Is this ET? Mystery of strange radio bursts from space]”.
We have to remain sceptical on the discovery until proven otherwise, but it looks very interesting…
Interesting stuff but in all likelihood this will turn out to be natural or home grown phenomena. There is still a lot we don’t know about the universe around us. ET is one possible explanation but there could likely be many others. Similar excitement and ET speculation arose when pulsars were first discovered and no one had a good explanation for the exquisitely timed pulses of radio waves. Now we do. Its wasn’t ET.
They last just a few milliseconds and erupt with about as much energy as the sun releases in a month. (...) And they seem to come from far outside the galaxy.From the science article. Before assuming some ET has such huge capabilities, I also guess there must be some natural but special object doing this.
If the signals are natural and their dispersion measures are caused by the action of deep space electrons, as is normally observed, then the DMs indicate very distant - extragalactic - sources. If the signals are artificial and the DMs are part of the (intended?) signal then they can be as close as you like. One possibility is that they are generated artificially (intentionally or accidentally) here on Earth. Future work must eliminate these various possibilitiesThey last just a few milliseconds and erupt with about as much energy as the sun releases in a month. (...) And they seem to come from far outside the galaxy.From the science article. Before assuming some ET has such huge capabilities, I also guess there must be some natural but special object doing this.
Turns out the mysterious signals were coming from microwave ovens in the facility.
Origins of Mysterious Radio Wave Burst Discovered]
Another one bites the dust.
Turns out the mysterious signals were coming from microwave ovens in the facility. Origins of Mysterious Radio Wave Burst Discovered] Another one bites the dust.Thanks for the update Darron. I always thought there was something alien about the food when it comes out of those things.
Turns out the mysterious signals were coming from microwave ovens in the facility. Origins of Mysterious Radio Wave Burst Discovered] Another one bites the dust.If a powdered non-dairy creamer was also involved, things could have been much worse.]
Pinky and the Brain may be my all-time favorite cartoon.
Turns out the mysterious signals were coming from microwave ovens in the facility. Origins of Mysterious Radio Wave Burst Discovered] Another one bites the dust.Not according to this.] This is a bit confusing, but apparently they are talking about two different sets of signals. From the article:
Researchers have long been mystified by the perytons because they confused how scientists understood “fast radio bursts" (FRBs) — genuine messages from outer space that are still not explained.] Those messages appear to be coming from outside of our galaxy, but the perytons didn't fit with that interpretation.
According to this paper Identifying the source of perytons at the Parkes radio telescope]
Radio emission escaping from microwave ovens during the magnetron shut-down phase neatly explain all of the observed properties of the peryton signals. Now that the peryton source has been identified, we furthermore demonstrate that the microwaves on site could not have caused FRB 010724. This and other distinct observational differences show that FRBs are excellent candidates for genuine extragalactic transients.perytons that have been observed are caused by a microwave. However at least one signal FRB 010724 was not such a peryton, which they still claim could be extraterrestrial.
Life is a naturally occurring phenomena. It seems to me that, in the VASTNESS of our universe, it is unlikely, that Earth is the ONLY place in which organisms could develop the capacity to send and/or receive signals across space.
According to this paper Identifying the source of perytons at the Parkes radio telescope]These articles are a bit confusing, perhaps because of clumsy reporting, but my best understanding right now is that there are ten FRB "signals" since 2001 that are not explained and which display a distinct mathematical pattern. The peryton microwave signals are apparently a separate thing; they were thought to be FRBs, but were later determined to be caused by the microwave. So as I understand it we are still looking at ten FRBs that display a mathematical pattern and remain unexplained. The odds of this pattern emerging by chance are minuscule, according to people who have studied these bursts.Radio emission escaping from microwave ovens during the magnetron shut-down phase neatly explain all of the observed properties of the peryton signals. Now that the peryton source has been identified, we furthermore demonstrate that the microwaves on site could not have caused FRB 010724. This and other distinct observational differences show that FRBs are excellent candidates for genuine extragalactic transients.perytons that have been observed are caused by a microwave. However at least one signal FRB 010724 was not such a peryton, which they still claim could be extraterrestrial.
Life is a naturally occurring phenomena. It seems to me that, in the VASTNESS of our universe, it is unlikely, that Earth is the ONLY place in which organisms could develop the capacity to send and/or receive signals across space.You are right of course but it has occured to me that whether or not life exists is not the real question. The real question is whether or not "detectible life" exists. If there is an abundance of life out there which we can never detect does it really matter? This definition changes the odds a bit. It virtually eliminates life in other galaxies from the equation since communication across the vast distances between galaxies would be impossible and even the discovery of other worlds and the detection of evidence of microbial life on extragalactic worlds is far beyond our current ability and may be beyond the reach of even the most advanced future technologies. That still leaves us with about 300 billion stars in our own galaxy but even here more than half of the galaxy may be blocked from our view due to dust. That still leaves 150 Billion stars and then whatever number of planets exist around each of them on average ( a number we are just now getting a handle on). It seems to me that still gives us pertty good odds of detecting microbial life in our own bakcyard sometime in the not too distant future. intelligent life is another matter. I could be wrong, there is no data to base this on, but I would be extremely surprised if technologically advanced civilizations like our last for anything close to a million years. At least on this world there are far too many reasons for humans to ty and kill each other and as we become more technologically advanced the methods to do so on a massive scale become ever more widely available. Even if society as a whole were not destroyed we will likely destroy our ability to search for other life because we have destroyed a significant portion of civilization or our environment or depleted our resources at some point. I could be wrong and Gene Roddenbury's future could be more accurate. I'll take that bet with anyone who wants to. We'll met back here in a million years and see who was right. So if a technologically advanced civilization lasts only 1 million years and the habital lifespan of the planet is maybe 6 billion years then tecnologically advanced life exists for only 1/6,000 of the planets life. Since stars and planets are forming and dying all the time life will not be developing at the same time on all of theseplanets. Whatever the odds are of two civilizations developing within a reasonable distance of each other there is only about one chance in 6,000 that those two civilizations in the same neighborhood would exist at the same time and be able to communicate or detect one another. If each glalactic neghborhood were to include the closest million stars for example and only one out of every thousand stars ever develop technologically advanced life then of all the civilizations that ever existed only one in 6 would ever know about their neighbors existance. If intelligent life occurs more rarely the odds will go down substantially. Lots of ifs and buts in the Drake equation here. We are only just starting to get a handle on some of the numbers we need to replace the assumptions with, but despite the high probability that there is life besides our in the universe, its far from a sure thing that we will ever get an answer to our question of whether we are alone.
So we agree that other technologically advanced civilizations probably have or will exist somewhere/sometime in our universe. I agree also that the timing is an issue as to whether we could detect such a civilization.
Given that socialization may be a key factor (in the development of a technologically advanced society) such civilizations may also have some level of desire (as we do) to make contact. A civilization that is technologically advanced enough, could presumably send intergalactic signals, and even mechanize/automate such attempts in a fashion that would extend beyond the actual existence of the civilization. This would serve to increase the odds of contact that are negatively impacted by distance and timing.
So I think that it is quite possible that we may someday (if we have not already) receive a signal from another civilization, although that civilization may no longer even exist.
So I think that it is quite possible that we may someday (if we have not already) receive a signal from another civilization, although that civilization may no longer even exist.Maybe but even nuclear power sources only last a century at most and electronics decay over time. I doubt any signalling device would extend a civilizations reach more than a thousand years beyond their demise.
So I think that it is quite possible that we may someday (if we have not already) receive a signal from another civilization, although that civilization may no longer even exist.Maybe but even nuclear power sources only last a century at most and electronics decay over time. I doubt any signalling device would extend a civilizations reach more than a thousand years beyond their demise. You're spoiling all their fun with logic, Mac. Lois
Sorry, Didnt mean to be a buzz kill. How about a round of Romulan Ale for the house to make amends?
You think you’re a buzz kill? You haven’t mentioned that we are separated from other potential intelligent civilizations not only in distance but in time. In addition to the incredibly unlikely events that led to intelligent life on Earth, it took 3.5 billion years to get to this point. There could have been a civilization in our galaxy (run with the thought experiment here) where intelligent dinosaurs arose, flourished and died out millions of years ago. Any signal they sent our way would have passed undetected.
We could conceivably be one of the early civilizations in our galaxy, which means there isn’t a receiver within shouting distance.
I’ll take a pitcher of that Roman Ale.
So I think that it is quite possible that we may someday (if we have not already) receive a signal from another civilization, although that civilization may no longer even exist.Maybe but even nuclear power sources only last a century at most and electronics decay over time. I doubt any signalling device would extend a civilizations reach more than a thousand years beyond their demise. You're speaking from our vantage point and our current technologies. (Nuclear energy is not likely the end all, ultimate energy resource that a technologically advanced civilization would devise.) But even at our current state of technological advancement, there are those who consider artificial intelligence to be possible, eventually. One possibility is that self-replicating artificial intelligence entities could extend, indefinitely, beyond the span of their initiating biological civilization/s. If we do make contact with another civilization, it will likely be due to the efforts of a civilization that is (or was) much more advanced than ours is, currently. Still, if we don't eventually find, evidence of even microbial life in our own solar system, (e.g., on Mars or Europa, etc.) perhaps Life is not a common enough occurrence, in the universe, for us to ever expect contact from or with another civilization in our own or other galaxies.