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Scientists looking for aliens investigate radio beam from nearby star

39 points by zw123456 6y ago

shrimp_emoji 6y ago
Only 4.2 ly away[0]! That'd be like Three Body Problem-tier convenience. : D Also, class M star: >In 2017, Nasa scientists used computer models to show that if Proxima b had an Earth-like atmosphere, it could easily be stripped away by the intense radiation and solar flares unleashed by its parent star. Under this battering, the 4bn-year-old planet could have lost its entire atmosphere in 100m years. Yep. They burn the longest, but they don't burn cleanly. They "sputter", unleashing huge flares that can erode atmospheres, and their luminosities can fluctuate randomly. Imagine if the Earth was plunged into a 13-year-long superwinter because the Sun decided to be a bit less bright for a while. (In the Three Body Problem books, a planet there has wild climatic instability owing to the chaotic orbit around Alpha Centauri's three stars.) 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri
jjbinx007 6y ago
“We’ve been looking for alien life for so long now and the idea that it could turn out to be on our front doorstep, in the very next star system, is piling improbabilities upon improbabilities. “If there is intelligent life there, it would almost certainly have spread much more widely across the galaxy. The chances of the only two civilisations in the entire galaxy happening to be neighbours, among 400bn stars, absolutely stretches the bounds of rationality.” If there are 2 alien civilisations in our galaxy surely it's equally likely they are next to each other or some arbitrary distance.
- FriendlyNormie 6y ago
  You just won the retard award.
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  For each given distance, yes, but the property that's interesting to humans is binary: "near" vs "far". It's also subjective, but almost any definition would put most of the galaxy in the "far" category, thereby making it more likely that a random location is "far".
  - usgroup 6y ago
    I’m actually not sure that’s what he meant. I think he meant that if you picked two planets to have life on them at random, and the pairwise distances between planets forms a uniform distribution, then the distance between the two planets randomly chosen is equally likely to be any distance.
- Bootvis 6y ago
  No, because the volume of the ball around earth grows with distance cubed. Assuming of course that searching in a bigger space is likely to find more non-earth life.
- kordlessagain 6y ago
  > The chances of the only two civilisations in the entire galaxy happening to be neighbours, among 400bn stars, absolutely stretches the bounds of rationality. I think this is dependent on the conditions by which one or more related lifeforms emerged. It's entirely possible life here came from there or from there to here and the reason it's here and there is because it's close. Chances assuming no travel between the two places is just silly.
- zw123456 6y ago
  Yes, probably, but then on the other hand, if panspermia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia) was the cause of life here, whatever mechanism was at work (e.g. interstellar objects, fragments from an exploded system) then it would make sense to have seeded clusters of stars. Fun to think about, obviously, who knows.
- teraflop 6y ago
  This is not true even in an extremely idealized model. For example, if you pick two random points in a unit cube, they are much more likely to be a moderate distance apart (on average, about 0.66 units) than they are to be very close together. https://people.kth.se/~johanph/habc.pdf https://people.kth.se/~johanph/habc.pdf
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  But isn't it easier to detect nearby signals from ones of equal power from further away? If so, why should we be surprised that we detect those signals which are easier to detect before those which are more difficult to detect?
monort 6y ago
Better link: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/alien-hunters-discover-mysterious-signal-from-proxima-centauri/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/alien-hunters-dis...
mrfusion 6y ago
Is it possible to try to decode the signal we’ve received so far? Could there be information in it?
- mkoubaa 6y ago
  We don't know their codes nor do we know the format of the original signal (it aint ascii) so my guess is not really.
  - AreYouElite 6y ago
    It's a large universe, somebody out there is bound to use ascii. Proposing an ascii federation for this spiral arm of the galaxy.
  - jtsiskin 6y ago
    If it was a extraterrestrial signal intended for someone to decode, we likely could decode it.
    - jobigoud 6y ago
      If it's compressed correctly you might not even realize it's a signal. If I send a jpeg by radio to 1930 I'm not sure what they could make of it.
cletus 6y ago
This has been posted several times already. It's sensationalist. Before anyone gets too excited, be aware that Jupiter (as one example) emits radio waves [1]. I don't think the researchers are necessarily suggesting an alien origin (honestly, shame on them if they are). It's more likely sensationalist reporting. It's almost certainly natural in origin. [1]: https://www.britannica.com/place/Jupiter-planet/The-auroras https://www.britannica.com/place/Jupiter-planet/The-auroras
- steve_musk 6y ago
  Maybe the media headlines are sensational (as they always are), and it’s unfortunate that it leaked before the papers were officially released. But Jupiter emitting radio waves is really not relevant here. The signal they saw is a very arrow frequency, which pretty strongly indicates a technological origin. See [1] for a better overview of the situation. [1] https://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2020/12/20/blc1-a-candidate-signal-around-proxima/ https://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2020/12/20/blc1-a-candidat...
iamben 6y ago
Comments from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25476069 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25476069
dmje 6y ago
Humans had better stop farting. There's literally no way the aliens will take us seriously if we continue filling up with gas and having to let it out with a comedy sound.
- dmje 6y ago
  What I find most hilarious about hn is the total lack of sense of humour. Sigh.
  - permo-w 6y ago
    that’s my favourite part
pmoriarty 6y ago
"If you see such a signal and it's not coming from the surface of Earth, you know you have detected extraterrestrial technology," says Jason Wright, a SETI-centric astronomer at Penn State University in Pennsylvania. "Unfortunately, humans have launched a lot of extraterrestrial technology." The UFO crowd is going to have a field day with that quote.
- umeshunni 6y ago
  Jason Wright is, of course, the same astronomer who set off the 'Alien Megastructure' theory a few years ago when KIC 8462852 (Tabby's star) was dimming. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabby%27s_Star https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabby%27s_Star https://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2015/10/15/kic-8462852wheres-the-flux/ https://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2015/10/15/kic-8462852wher...
  - permo-w 6y ago
    of course

39 points by zw123456 6y ago

Only 4.2 ly away[0]! That'd be like Three Body Problem-tier convenience. : D Also, class M star: >In 2017, Nasa scientists used computer models to show that if Proxima b had an Earth-like atmosphere, it could easily be stripped away by the intense radiation and solar flares unleashed by its parent star. Under this battering, the 4bn-year-old planet could have lost its entire atmosphere in 100m years. Yep. They burn the longest, but they don't burn cleanly. They "sputter", unleashing huge flares that can erode atmospheres, and their luminosities can fluctuate randomly. Imagine if the Earth was plunged into a 13-year-long superwinter because the Sun decided to be a bit less bright for a while. (In the Three Body Problem books, a planet there has wild climatic instability owing to the chaotic orbit around Alpha Centauri's three stars.) 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri

jjbinx007 6y ago

“We’ve been looking for alien life for so long now and the idea that it could turn out to be on our front doorstep, in the very next star system, is piling improbabilities upon improbabilities. “If there is intelligent life there, it would almost certainly have spread much more widely across the galaxy. The chances of the only two civilisations in the entire galaxy happening to be neighbours, among 400bn stars, absolutely stretches the bounds of rationality.” If there are 2 alien civilisations in our galaxy surely it's equally likely they are next to each other or some arbitrary distance.

FriendlyNormie 6y ago
You just won the retard award.
happytoexplain 6y ago
For each given distance, yes, but the property that's interesting to humans is binary: "near" vs "far". It's also subjective, but almost any definition would put most of the galaxy in the "far" category, thereby making it more likely that a random location is "far".
- usgroup 6y ago
  I’m actually not sure that’s what he meant. I think he meant that if you picked two planets to have life on them at random, and the pairwise distances between planets forms a uniform distribution, then the distance between the two planets randomly chosen is equally likely to be any distance.
Bootvis 6y ago
No, because the volume of the ball around earth grows with distance cubed. Assuming of course that searching in a bigger space is likely to find more non-earth life.
kordlessagain 6y ago
> The chances of the only two civilisations in the entire galaxy happening to be neighbours, among 400bn stars, absolutely stretches the bounds of rationality. I think this is dependent on the conditions by which one or more related lifeforms emerged. It's entirely possible life here came from there or from there to here and the reason it's here and there is because it's close. Chances assuming no travel between the two places is just silly.
zw123456 6y ago
Yes, probably, but then on the other hand, if panspermia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia) was the cause of life here, whatever mechanism was at work (e.g. interstellar objects, fragments from an exploded system) then it would make sense to have seeded clusters of stars. Fun to think about, obviously, who knows.
teraflop 6y ago
This is not true even in an extremely idealized model. For example, if you pick two random points in a unit cube, they are much more likely to be a moderate distance apart (on average, about 0.66 units) than they are to be very close together. https://people.kth.se/~johanph/habc.pdf https://people.kth.se/~johanph/habc.pdf
pmoriarty 6y ago
But isn't it easier to detect nearby signals from ones of equal power from further away? If so, why should we be surprised that we detect those signals which are easier to detect before those which are more difficult to detect?

monort 6y ago

Better link: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/alien-hunters-discover-mysterious-signal-from-proxima-centauri/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/alien-hunters-dis...

mrfusion 6y ago

Is it possible to try to decode the signal we’ve received so far? Could there be information in it?

mkoubaa 6y ago
We don't know their codes nor do we know the format of the original signal (it aint ascii) so my guess is not really.
- AreYouElite 6y ago
  It's a large universe, somebody out there is bound to use ascii. Proposing an ascii federation for this spiral arm of the galaxy.
- jtsiskin 6y ago
  If it was a extraterrestrial signal intended for someone to decode, we likely could decode it.
  - jobigoud 6y ago
    If it's compressed correctly you might not even realize it's a signal. If I send a jpeg by radio to 1930 I'm not sure what they could make of it.

cletus 6y ago

This has been posted several times already. It's sensationalist. Before anyone gets too excited, be aware that Jupiter (as one example) emits radio waves [1]. I don't think the researchers are necessarily suggesting an alien origin (honestly, shame on them if they are). It's more likely sensationalist reporting. It's almost certainly natural in origin. [1]: https://www.britannica.com/place/Jupiter-planet/The-auroras https://www.britannica.com/place/Jupiter-planet/The-auroras

steve_musk 6y ago
Maybe the media headlines are sensational (as they always are), and it’s unfortunate that it leaked before the papers were officially released. But Jupiter emitting radio waves is really not relevant here. The signal they saw is a very arrow frequency, which pretty strongly indicates a technological origin. See [1] for a better overview of the situation. [1] https://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2020/12/20/blc1-a-candidate-signal-around-proxima/ https://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2020/12/20/blc1-a-candidat...

iamben 6y ago

Comments from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25476069 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25476069

dmje 6y ago

Humans had better stop farting. There's literally no way the aliens will take us seriously if we continue filling up with gas and having to let it out with a comedy sound.

dmje 6y ago
What I find most hilarious about hn is the total lack of sense of humour. Sigh.
- permo-w 6y ago
  that’s my favourite part

pmoriarty 6y ago

"If you see such a signal and it's not coming from the surface of Earth, you know you have detected extraterrestrial technology," says Jason Wright, a SETI-centric astronomer at Penn State University in Pennsylvania. "Unfortunately, humans have launched a lot of extraterrestrial technology." The UFO crowd is going to have a field day with that quote.

umeshunni 6y ago
Jason Wright is, of course, the same astronomer who set off the 'Alien Megastructure' theory a few years ago when KIC 8462852 (Tabby's star) was dimming. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabby%27s_Star https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabby%27s_Star https://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2015/10/15/kic-8462852wheres-the-flux/ https://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2015/10/15/kic-8462852wher...
- permo-w 6y ago
  of course