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Things like these and the Voyager probes etc. always make me wonder: What is the likelihood of discovering something that small among the vast empty scales of
by Razengan 7y ago
Things like these and the Voyager probes etc. always make me wonder:
What is the likelihood of discovering something that small among the vast empty scales of space?
If another species had sent something the size of the Voyager probes into our solar system, or even crashed it into our moon, or Mars, or even into the oceans of this very planet, what are the odds of us stumbling upon it?
- nabla9 7y agoThe plate they put on Voyager probes are just symbolic gestures. The change of somebody finding the probe is very close to zero. It's not they are not aimed at any stars so they just travel interstellar space. Within 40,000 years both probes will pass stars from 1.5 light years distance.
- Razengan 7y agoBut if an alien equivalent of a Voyager probe does drift into our system, what are our chances of picking it up?
- avian 7y agoZero. An object of Voyager's size is much too small to be detected by existing surveys - we can't even track most of passive objects in deep space we ourselves put there (see for example various hardware left in heliocentric orbits from Apollo missions, or more recently, Musk's Tesla). Even in the unlikely case that it was detected, events would turn out similar to the recent Oumuamua discovery. Some papers would be written on theories of its, most likely natural, origin. A last-second mission to intercept it (much less a sample return) would be considered too costly. There would have to be extraordinary and overwhelming evidence that it's artificial in origin for things to go differently. For a dead probe drifting through space, that evidence just wouldn't be there.
- JorgeGT 7y agoNote that alien civilizations could have vastly superior methods of detecting artificial objects than we have.
- duckerude 7y agoI think finding it on the moon might be relatively easy. Not much happens there, so things won't be buried or damaged quickly. In the article there are pictures of the moon taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter with a 1 pixel/meter resolution, and I expect it will only get better in the future.
- aquova 7y agoThe odds of another space-faring civilization with roughly the same detection technology of us finding the Voyager probes is infinitesimally small. However, any civilization that has managed to reach our Solar System (or just beyond it) most likely has technology we haven't even dreamed of, and could possibly detect it with Star Trek-esque "sensors". The bigger issue with the Voyager probe is that even if some other aliens did manage to find it, the odds that they would be able to replicate a phonograph in order to play the record is possibly a bigger hurtle. In the end, it's a neat symbolic touch for humans on the verge of going to space, but the most likely alien race to recover Voyager is us.
- i_am_proteus 7y agoA phonograph isn't necessary to play a record. Various methods of imaging of the grooves would reveal the data. For instance, archivists can listen to records with a laser-based device to avoid damaging fragile recordings.
- friedegg 7y agoNot that the quality is great, but you can play a record with a needle and a paper cone. Obviously, figuring out that you need to spin it and play it is not necessarily an easy leap, but it doesn't require much in terms of actual technology.
- mratzloff 7y agoThey've sent several of these out already (one orbits the sun, one is on Earth, another orbits Earth, and this is on the moon) and plan to send on the order of one thousand.