ET maybe

[n1ps]

Is there intelligent life out there?  Hello?  The question is not about 75 meters or 20 meters but about something that was picked up by the Kepler Telescope. 

The star gazing community is a little excited these days.  It seems they discovered something unusual.  Its something that I understand was picked up through the Planet Hunters crowd sourcing site.  Its about a star near the Lyra constellation.  It blinks.  Its the way it blinks that has people talking.  And it is baffling some pretty smart astrophysicists too.    ONE of the possibilities is that the objects being seen are...well sort of man made.  Or made by ET anyhow.  Probably not, but it is one explanation. 

So the next step is to train a couple radio telescopes on the star system and listen. This is underway.  I understand the Allen Telescope is looking at it and the Green Bank Telescope also is mentioned.  The star is about 1500 light years away.  We would be listening to signals sent from around the 6th century.  We would not start emitting radio waves for another 14 centuries give or take a few decades.

I'm curious what frequencies the radio telescopes will listen to? Mostly microwave?  It must be difficult to filter out earth made signals (especially some of the slop bucket emissions). 

If they do pick up RF signals, however doubtful, well we are running a zero percent success rate, then what next?  Maybe we better be careful.  As Steven Hawking noted and I paraphrase, it didnt work out so well for the natives after Columbus landed. 

One article:  http://www.space.com/30855-alien-life-search-kepler-megastructure.html

Planet Hunters:  http://www.planethunters.org/

~ps

[KA2DZT]

My daughter is studying astrophysics at Rugters and was just telling me about some discovery that was just made.  Seems to be a big deal, I'll ask her if it is what you're talking about.

Fred

[N9axl]

So, assuming there is no ET technology that runs our signals through a wormhole, we will have a few centuries - if we do decide this is an actual structure - to decide what to do. 


Personally, I'm with hiding. As pointed out things didn't work out so well for the natives.
The real point, and assuming this is confirmed as an actual artificially made object, is that that knowledge we are not alone  in and of itself fundamentally changes our philosophical outlook as a species.

[KB2WIG]

" Personally, I'm with hiding. As pointed out things didn't work out so well for the natives. "

Well, Columbus, et al, were looking for spices and gold. So watt would "They" want with us?

klc

Its a cookbook.

[N9axl]

Who knows what aliens would want?  Maybe they run their civilization on sea water or oxygen and they are running out. Or worse - we end up being an attraction for alien tourists.  Do we want to be overrun by hordes of tourists from Antares looking for cheap souveniers? Disneyworld in summer is already bad enough. 

[Opcom]

They want to take what they can and eat the rest.

[KA2DZT]

This past Sunday night, my daughter was at the telescope dome at Rugters observing a planet passing in front of a star a bizzillon miles from earth.  Seems this is how they discover planets.  The planet causes the light, from the star, to dim as the planet passes by.

Seems the subject of this thread speaks to this dimming of the star light.  The difference is that the dimming of this one star is far too dramatic to be caused by a planet passing in front.

Strange stuff,

Fred

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Well, it could be a radiating star with a massive crystalline surface that, due to rotation movement, appears to blink in some specific pattern. Sort of like a disco ball in reverse.  I suspect, if we had very sensitive antennas aimed in that direction, we would probably hear The Village People.

[K1JJ]

Interesting about the blinking star. Considering the vastness and "infinity" of the universe, anything is allowed and the answers can only become more bizarre as we advance.

[Now put on your Flash Gordon hat]

My humble opinion - Don't expect any ET invasions. Our own personal health will take us out, not an ET or asteroid. Any civilization advanced enough to send a mining operation to Earth light years away would be able to synthesize any materials they wanted right where they are.  Plus, the universe is absolutely loaded with raw materials. Super Nova explosions that created all this stuff happened everywhere, not just here.

I suppose humans could be a watchful curiosity or maybe even an experiment, or perhaps how ETs colonize the universe - us.  Though, watching an ant hill gets boring quickly.

It's mind boggling to imagine a civilization that was advanced one billion years from where we are now.  Since the universe is about 13 billion years old, there has been plenty of time to grow many.

I envision an advanced ET as a  silicon brain that was downloaded with the memories of a flesh creature and has since lived for millions of years. It flies around in a globe that is indestructible, with exquisite DC to past X-ray sensors to give it a perfect view. Linked to a  computer containing all the info in the known universe.  Better yet, an advanced ET has evolved into pure energy and can travel anywhere in the universe in zero time with an infinite lifespan.  

Considering our lust to blow ourselves up, a trip around the universe would probably show 99.99% of advancing "human" civilizations destroyed and dead. Only a precious few probably made it through and they are the ones who have planted the seeds and observe, hoping for the best - with us and other primitive hopefuls.

** But too late - they are already here. It is a scientific proven fact that Mick Jagger and Sylvester Stalone are both aliens. I saw it in a movie, so it must be true.

T

[W1AEX]

They want to take what they can and eat the rest.

This is fine Patrick as long as they don't "play" with their food.

[w1vtp]

Remember the Twilight Zone episode where the Aliens landed and during their visit "accidently" dropped a book that after translation had a title of "To Serve Mankind"  Remember the real title of the book?  Of course that was revealed after some humans were loaded on the ship that was to be a sightseeing tour.  It was a classic.

Al

[KB2WIG]

  "  The very explicit and very specific differences in points of view. To the wee ones...the little folk
called man...it's a marvelous adventure, a voyage to another planet. An exciting sojourn to
another section of the galaxy. But to the very large, granite-faced inhabitants known as
Kanamits...it's nothing more than a cattle car, a very comfortable provisions ship bringing food
from the other end of the universe. Like I say...it's all in the point of view.    "   

R. Serling

[W1AEX]

Mmmmm... kanamits! Very tasty!

[K1JJ]

I like the heavy black eye shadow.  That would make a great Halloween costume.   With a flashlight on your face, just imagine looking through someone's bedroom window at night with that get up.

T

[Jim/WA2MER]

Remember the real title of the book?  

"To Serve Man." It was a cookbook.

[W2NBC]

"I like the heavy black eye shadow"

And that voice!  Here is a short scene just recovered from the murky Twilight Zone vault:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnYA9AZljHk&feature=youtu.be

[K1JJ]

"I like the heavy black eye shadow"

And that voice!  Here is a short scene just recovered from the murky Twilight Zone vault:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnYA9AZljHk&feature=youtu.be

You're a funny guy!   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5QAHzu_kAc

[w1vtp]

Remember the real title of the book?  

"To Serve Man." It was a cookbook.

Great story, huh?  That ending was really cool (terrifying, depending on your point of view).

[n1ps]

The early results are in.  Nothing heard.  This per SETI which has been focused on the star in question.  In this case, KIC 8462852.  The Allen radio telescope array in CA has been tuned in for the last couple weeks, since the original paper was published about the unusual nature of the star.  Its curious what SETI was looking for, primarily 1 hz transmissions and some particular wide band xmissions, all within 1-10Ghz. 

This does not mean there are no emissions from the star system.  What would be the RF power needed to transmit into maybe a 30db gain antenna from 1500 light years away to be received here on earth at -150 dbm?  I dont know...but it would be a lot!

One reason they have been tuned in to this star is the possibility that ET made huge structures around the star, blocking the star light.  Its the percentage that the light got dimmed....about 22%.  And this happened over several weeks as picked up by the Kepler telescope.  By comparison, if ET looked at our star system and Jupiter passed in front of our sun, the light reduction would be less than 1%. 

Back to the RF power levels that could be picked up here, it is doubtful we could pick up anything using current antenna technology within a few hundred light years.  We exist on an outer band in our galaxy, more than 25K light years from the center.  But, bigger antennas are in the plans.  At least 2, million-square- meter antenna arrays are in the works, one in Africa and the other in Australia.  Thats a big antenna.

Also reading around some of the reports- a few of the papers reported that if ET in fact made a Dyson swarm, a mega structure surrounding the star to collect the star's energy with solar panels, ET could have sent a transmission having access to huge amounts of power.  They listed this power as 1027 watts.    Obviously the people who wrote this (or copied it actually) were not technical!  The actual number should have been 10^27 watts.  I noted several papers wrote this and nobody noticed the glaring error.

But for now, nothing but crickets.  Both visual and radio telescopes will continue to monitor KIC 8462852.  Time will tell...or not.

~ps

[DMOD]

If high powered spacecraft were zipping back and forth polishing the Death Star’s primary laser, this is the sort of radio leakage we might expect to find.

http://gizmodo.com/sorry-alien-hunters-no-signs-of-life-from-kic-8462852-1741001748