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Maybe intelligent life is very rare in the cosmos. Or maybe the distances between advanced civilizations is so great that even using the Alcubierre Drive is impractical. Maybe there's a point where all civilizations cease to exist and we've just missed them by a few million years. Too much to think about on a Friday afternoon!
A year or two ago, a diagram came showing asteroids whose orbits intersect Earth's. There were thousands of them. Combine that with ice ages, gamma ray bursts, super volcanoes, and all the other life-threatening dangers we now know about that we didn't know about a few decades ago (plus species' tendencies to use technology to wipe out their enemies) -- well, that sad to say might be the reason why no one's come a-knocking. Plus, it's hard to imagine the payoff other than curiosity of investing huge amounts of resources into a search for other civilizations.
A year or two ago, a diagram came showing asteroids whose orbits intersect Earth's. There were thousands of them. Combine that with ice ages, gamma ray bursts, super volcanoes, and all the other life-threatening dangers we now know about that we didn't know about a few decades ago (plus species' tendencies to use technology to wipe out their enemies) -- well, that sad to say might be the reason why no one's come a-knocking. Plus, it's hard to imagine the payoff other than curiosity of investing huge amounts of resources into a search for other civilizations.
Yeah life is chaotic. The universe doesn't care what life it wipes out. We could all be gone tomorrow. I wonder what the world would be like had an asteroid not wiped out the dinosaurs. I remember reading about a genus of dinos (Troodons I believe) that, had that not happened, may have eventually evolved into an intelligent species. They had all the prerequisites: binocular vision, opposable thumbs, large brains, etc. It's been a long time since I've read the literature but it has always stuck with me.
Just found this SETI Institute video posted yesterday that discusses Tabby's Star in detail, and more generally the challenges of and approaches to searching for advanced civilizations (long video -- 1:04):
Agreed. I hadn't thought of that. It would be another 1500 or so years before they picked up any radio signal from us.
If we could make THIS work, we could conceivably have some sort of interaction with them. I read a paper once that referenced using this drive to get to Alpha Centauri in around 2 weeks. I did the math and found it would get us to KIC 8462852 in roughly 14 years. Who knows though if this will ever be reality.
While we are imagining their superior tech why cant they have long range sensors or probe network that can see us in real time and not wait 1400 years for our radio signals to reach them?
While we are imagining their superior tech why cant they have long range sensors or probe network that can see us in real time and not wait 1400 years for our radio signals to reach them?
The 1400 years is time required for any electromagnetic spectra to travel to Earth, it's the speed of light. You won't get faster than that.
While we are imagining their superior tech why cant they have long range sensors or probe network that can see us in real time and not wait 1400 years for our radio signals to reach them?
What would they be sensing? The only particles that have been proposed that would travel FTL are tachyons, and even if they existed, there's no evidence they interact with matter and would provide information about what's going on at a distance -- or would be detectable.
What would they be sensing? The only particles that have been proposed that would travel FTL are tachyons, and even if they existed, there's no evidence they interact with matter and would provide information about what's going on at a distance -- or would be detectable.
What is FTL?
And could the star have intelligent life? Its that weird a star?
And could the star have intelligent life? Its that weird a star?
FTL = a common TLA for faster than light
It is in fact that weird a star (the video I linked to explains why). There are no convincing natural explanations for its weird behavior, and one of the explanations that seems to fit the behavior is that someone is has been building really big things around it -- like a Dyson swarm.
Anybody ever calculate how many square AUs a Dyson sphere would have?
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