Alien Life?

[woodchip]

Seems astronomers may have found signs of alien life. First sign was a weird flickering star. What this could mean was there may be planet size mega structures passing around it (yeah it could mean other things too). There is enough interest that there are plans for SETI to look at it.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/10/ ... cmp=hplnws

[Avder]

It's absolutely fascinating. The thing is, it is in all likelihood not something alien like a Dyson Sphere, but some other effect we know nothing about.

That said, a Dyson Sphere currently can not be eliminated from the list of possibilities.

Space is ★■◆●ing neat. I wish they'd hurry up and invent Warp Drive so we can go out and really explore it.

[Foil]

From a response I saw elsewhere:

Really tired of seeing this article. From the actual paper in question:

"we conclude that the scenario most consistent with the data in hand is the passage of a family of exocomet fragments, all of which are associated with a single previous breakup event."

The media taking this as "Astronomers think they found a dyson sphere" only shows how poor our media is at communicating science and our populace is at getting it.

[woodchip]

I thought about a Dyson sphere but then the question arises. ..would you be able to see the star?

[Duper]

LOL! Thanks Foil!

I was like... wow.. that's a leap of logic...

[Tunnelcat]

It would be cool if it WAS something alien built.

[woodchip]

From a response I saw elsewhere:

Really tired of seeing this article. From the actual paper in question:

"we conclude that the scenario most consistent with the data in hand is the passage of a family of exocomet fragments, all of which are associated with a single previous breakup event."

The media taking this as "Astronomers think they found a dyson sphere" only shows how poor our media is at communicating science and our populace is at getting it.

Actually, my link doesn't mention Dyson spheres and does mention comets so not sure what you are reading.

[Avder]

I thought about a Dyson sphere but then the question arises. ..would you be able to see the star?

A completed one? No.

One that's in progress? Yes you'd see the star much like we're seeing it now, which is why it's an actual possibility, if extremely remote.

[Capm]

Its probably a giant asteroid field

[Avder]

Its probably a giant asteroid field

If so that's one hell of an asteroid field if it can block out THAT much of a stars light.

[sigma]

You can be sure that other extraterrestrial civilizations exist in space. Many, very many. But our Creator is not stupid and he knowingly made a huge, unfathomable distances between these civilizations. Don't need to be clairvoyant to understand that if we find each other, our relationship will end is not happy ending for us and for them.

[Avder]

You can be sure that other extraterrestrial civilizations exist in space. Many, very many. But our Creator is not stupid and he knowingly made a huge, unfathomable distances between these civilizations. Don't need to be clairvoyant to understand that if we find each other, our relationship will end is not happy ending for us and for them.

I don't think conflict is as certain as you think it is.

For one thing, if it's a mutual first contact in space, we're going to have to come up with a communications protocol when neither side can actually talk to eachother. That's gonna mean SCIENTISTS, and, assuming that their scientists are more focused on actually learning like ours are, then there's a decent hope that when we manage to say hi to eachother, there's going to be a lot of mutual excitement on both sides.

Now, I know I'm making a lot of assumptions here. The main one is that they have some of the same ways of looking at things as we do. I'm making the assumption that they likely crossed the same barriers we have in our evolution, and other barriers we have yet to cross before we become truly space-faring. I'm guessing each species has unique but similar barriers to cross.

A problem can quite possibly occur if one race is considerably more advanced than the other is. For example if we're a few hundred years ahead and we're running around the galaxy on a network of constructed wormholes and they're just puttering around their stars local group on their mark I warp drive, how we react will depend on if we're benevolent or malevolent, and if we choose to welcome them as equals or dominate them as masters. And the reverse if of course true as well. We could end up as cheap labor for some ★■◆● bunch of aliens if they're way ahead of us and happen to be space racists.

The thing is though, you raise a perfectly good point with the distance between civilizations. Even if there are countless civilizations out there, the universe is nearly infinitely bigger, meaning even if there are trillions and trillions of intelligent, spacefaring species out there, it's very likely that none of them have even met face to face yet.

The universe is only about 14 billion years old or so, at this point. Considering that the age of starlight will extend for tens of trillions of years yet, that means were basically in minute one of existence. There's a very good possibility we're the very first civilization to get as far as we have. There are also a ton of other possibilities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox - This article gives many examples of what may or may not be at work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter - This article goes into detail about the concept of passing through a filter.

Basically, those two boil down to three possibilities for intelligent life in the universe, as far as we're concerned:
1. We're rare: We're among the few civilizations that have gotten this far in evolution, meaning it is extremely hard to get to the point we're at.
2. We're first: We are so far the only civilization that has gotten this far, and that may be good or bad news for us.
3. We're fucked: It's extremely common for a civilization to advance to the point where we are. It's also extremely common for a civilization like ours to get wiped out somehow and we've not yet reached that filter, and when we do it is highly unlikely we successfully cross it.

Additionally, there's another possibility for alien life: we're it.

There's a decent chance that life as we know it did not originate here on earth at all. The organic molecules needed for life could have formed elsewhere and traveled to earth by way of a comet. Mars would have been habitable way before Earth was, and life could have developed in the now evaporated Mars oceans and hitched a ride on a meteorite to Earth and 4 billion years later here we all are, descendants of ancient martian cellular life. Maybe we're the result of some other civilization spreading simple DNA around billions of years ago because they're lonely and hope one day some planet they seeded develops a species of playmates for them. Maybe we're all just simulations in some bored alien teenagers screensaver that's running on his computer when he's out of his room. Or maybe Earth was a reality several trillion years ago and I'm just some random emergence of thoughts that happen to be exactly the same as the person who really typed all this nonsense out.

That's the thing, given enough time, almost anything that can happen under the physical laws of reality likely will at some point.

And the universe is a highly dangerous place. There could be a gamma ray burst headed our way right now and we would never know it cause once it gets here we're all literally fried and so is this planet.

Isn't the universe just delightfully fucked up?

[Ferno]

you watched that talk aswell, huh avder.

[sigma]

Avder, it's all clear. But the problem is that if you look at the heads of some major countries, all the normal people will see that the mind has left the our planet for a long ago, so they are looking for extraterrestrial intelligence, in the hope that it will be wiser than the human mind. For example, the United States, even with their neighbors across the Earth hostel can not find a common language. The aliens will die from Homeric laughter and they just will throw up the phone, after communicating with heads of this the largest world power.

[Tunnelcat]

Aliens won't find any intelligent life here.

[Avder]

you watched that talk aswell, huh avder.

What talk?

[Ferno]

There was a talk discussing almost exactly what you wrote. It might be on TED.

[Avder]

There was a talk discussing almost exactly what you wrote. It might be on TED.

I should have gotten into theoretical ★■◆● like that. Maybe then I'd actually be happy with what I do.

[woodchip]

So to build a Dyson sphere, how many AU's from the sun would it have to be? How would trapped heat be handled?? And lastly would there be enough material in the asteroid belt and Kuiper belt to build one?

[Spidey]

The thing about a Dyson sphere is…if you had the resources/technology to build one you wouldn’t need one, it’s kinda like that weird logic where you hear people say “If I only had a transporter to get to work” well if you had a transporter, why would you need to work.

[Spidey]

Aliens won't find any intelligent life here.

Quoted for truth.

[Avder]

So to build a Dyson sphere, how many AU's from the sun would it have to be? How would trapped heat be handled?? And lastly would there be enough material in the asteroid belt and Kuiper belt to build one?

I'm gonna just go with 1 AU, solar panels and mirrors, and not even close. Especially as you get further and further out, the material is a greater and greater percent of volatiles than stuff that could actually stay floating that close to the sun and not melt/vaporize

[Krom]

1 AU would probably be way too hot, think the tropics but without ever having night time cooling. The amount of energy the sphere would be absorbing is, well...astronomical, so unless you spread it out over a larger area or have something with ridiculously high energy demands to convert it all, you will probably spend almost as much energy as the output of the star itself just cooling the sphere.