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I doubt that this was anything but a natural object. That said, our civilization already has the technology to send a probe to another star system. It may take

I doubt that this was anything but a natural object. That said, our civilization already has the technology to send a probe to another star system. It may take 100k years to get there, but it could be done if we wanted to. Theoretically, sending a tiny probe within a human life time isn't that far out of reach. I don't think we can discount the general possibility based on our own capabilities, limitations, and motivations. If we were not constrained by our biology, maybe spending thousands of years in transit wouldn't be a big deal. Or maybe a few gram payload is all we need to explore the neighborhood.

erklik 6y ago
>our civilization already has the technology to send a probe to another star system. Yet we haven't sent anything. Maybe aliens are the same. Maybe they don't have the political will to send anything. Maybe they have their own climate change, or insane leaders to deal with. Or maybe not, maybe they've developed a virtual universe and are living in that instead of exploring the physical one. I find the assumption that aliens have the same drive or desire as some humans to explore the universe rather crazy. It seems like we want a better versions from the heavens somewhere to tell us, it'll be okay, don't worry, here's the blueprints to fix all your issues. It's easily possible that aliens are opposite, wanting to focus on their issues and fix them rather than looking out to the stars for some hypothetical better version of themselves.
- Voloskaya 6y ago
  > Yet we haven't sent anything. But we have, quite a few of them actually, and 2 have left the solar system. It's just that none of them will come close to any star for a few hundred thousands of years.
  - erklik 6y ago
    > It's just that none of them will come close to any star for a few hundred thousands of years. I don't believe we have sent anything explicitly for the purpose of reaching another star? Right? Exploring our Solar System with probes, sure. Has there been a probe that was meant to explore another star system?
    - Voloskaya 6y ago
      Not explicitly no, but does it really make a difference if it's explicit? Given enough time our probes are bound to pass very close to some other star systems. If there are other civilizations, it's likely that most of them would be on average 1 billion years older than us, as the average star is 1B older than our sun. That's a lot of time for a lot of probes to cross many star systems even just by accident.

erklik 6y ago

>our civilization already has the technology to send a probe to another star system. Yet we haven't sent anything. Maybe aliens are the same. Maybe they don't have the political will to send anything. Maybe they have their own climate change, or insane leaders to deal with. Or maybe not, maybe they've developed a virtual universe and are living in that instead of exploring the physical one. I find the assumption that aliens have the same drive or desire as some humans to explore the universe rather crazy. It seems like we want a better versions from the heavens somewhere to tell us, it'll be okay, don't worry, here's the blueprints to fix all your issues. It's easily possible that aliens are opposite, wanting to focus on their issues and fix them rather than looking out to the stars for some hypothetical better version of themselves.

Voloskaya 6y ago
> Yet we haven't sent anything. But we have, quite a few of them actually, and 2 have left the solar system. It's just that none of them will come close to any star for a few hundred thousands of years.
- erklik 6y ago
  > It's just that none of them will come close to any star for a few hundred thousands of years. I don't believe we have sent anything explicitly for the purpose of reaching another star? Right? Exploring our Solar System with probes, sure. Has there been a probe that was meant to explore another star system?
  - Voloskaya 6y ago
    Not explicitly no, but does it really make a difference if it's explicit? Given enough time our probes are bound to pass very close to some other star systems. If there are other civilizations, it's likely that most of them would be on average 1 billion years older than us, as the average star is 1B older than our sun. That's a lot of time for a lot of probes to cross many star systems even just by accident.