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NASA Is Quietly Funding a Hunt for Alien Megastructures
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- woleium 5y agohttps://knowyourmeme.com/photos/183103 https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/183103
- RosanaAnaDana 5y agoI am slowly getting the creeping sense that maybe there is something to all this. Also, if they were looking for alien megastructure I would check the oceans first. Would seem far easier to go undetected at depth.
- WJW 5y agoI don't think you understand quite how "mega" these structures are. There's not an ocean in the galaxy that is big enough to contain a dyson sphere.
- RosanaAnaDana 5y agoYou are correct.
- belter 5y agoSome perspective... "Universe Size Comparison 3D" https://youtu.be/i93Z7zljQ7I https://youtu.be/i93Z7zljQ7I
- echelon 5y ago> I am slowly getting the creeping sense that maybe there is something to all this. By "all this", do you mean the recent Pentagon releases on UFOs/UAPs?
- potiuper 5y agoInterstellar (non-carbon based) life will go straight for the nearest suitable (stable) black hole to setup a kugelblitz as it is the most efficient, which we might get (un?)lucky enough to detect with the JWT depending on how good the infrared emissions are managed + distance.
- senortumnus 5y agoBrb looking up kugelblitz edit: :O
- phkahler 5y agoWhat if that's what subatomic particles actually are?
- s1artibartfast 5y agoI don't understand what you are implying. After looking it up, a kugelblitz is a type of black hold. What does it mean to go to a black hole to set up a black hole?
- potiuper 5y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20151003080252/http://news.discovery.com/space/a-seti-search-for-black-hole-power-plants-121121.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20151003080252/http://news.disco... Please note this page is about a decade old, many links do not work; mentions making a solar array with the area of Arizona for bootstrapping, but a Starshot approach with 3 satellites around the "natural" black hole for the first ergosphere superradiant scattering pump would be less work assuming a candidate is relatively close. Credits: https://blackholes.stardate.org/popculture/pop-imperial-earth-arthur-clark.html https://blackholes.stardate.org/popculture/pop-imperial-eart...
- potiuper 5y agoSee also: https://www.youtube.com/306545da-3bdd-495b-aeae-92f0992e025a https://www.youtube.com/306545da-3bdd-495b-aeae-92f0992e025a
- JoeDaDude 5y agoI for one, would like to attend thie SETI Symposium , attendance at which is one of the items funded: https://sites.psu.edu/setisymposium2021/ https://sites.psu.edu/setisymposium2021/
- mouzogu 5y agoIt would be pretty crazy to detect some kind of megastructure whilst also knowing that there is probably no way we could ever communicate with them. At least not in any practical sense.
- bb2018 5y agoNASA's version of doing things quietly is pretty loud https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/06/28/nasa-administrator-bill-nelson-classified-ufo-report-newsroom.cnn https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/06/28/nasa-administrator-... I honestly am cool with NASA getting lots more money but also seems clear that the beurocrats have realized the best way to secure more funding now is no longer to make a national security argument - but one involving overhyping the evidence of aliens.
- hypertele-Xii 5y agoCuriosity trumps fear.
- seanicus 5y agoNot sure if that strategy will work in the long-run but honestly I'll take whatever works.
- fogdart 5y agoAssuming we could see it. I'm not a physicist but I have read this book series called The Three Body Problem, in which we discover alien structures, but in the fourth dimension.
- asimovfan 5y agothanks for spoiling it! i was meaning to read it.
- bashinator 5y agoThat’s hardly a spoiler
- Tenoke 5y agoI'd definitely consider it one and would've dropped the book if someone had told me just when I started it.
- l-lousy 5y agoThe 4th dimension is used as more of a metaphor or minor plot point. The series has a much more valuable message.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- alexanderdmitri 5y agoDefinitely still read it, that's not a spoiler. The implications of the Dark Forest are very pertinent to this sort of search for other life.
- Tenoke 5y agoThe three body problem is more magical realism than scientific really.
- jl6 5y agoThe article focuses on megastructures for the clicks but it seems the actual project uses the more restrained term “technosignatures” (of which megastructures might be one, albeit a far-fetched one). A more likely technosignature is the presence in a planetary atmosphere of a chemical that is produced by no known natural mechanism - and that of course would not automatically prove alien life, because we might just have overlooked a possible natural pathway to the production of that chemical.
- queuebert 5y agoMegastructures are probably less likely, yes, but should be a much more confident detection. Who knows all the chemical production networks possible in a planetary atmosphere. But there aren't many ways to make a star-sized perfect blackbody.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- plutonorm 5y agoare they? why?
- perihelions 5y agoThe particular grant highlighted in OP is for transiting megastructures in TESS light curves. I don't think the article was misleading. >"Motivated by these discoveries, we are embarking on a project to quantify the frequency of anomalous fading events-- and hence occulting structures--among main sequence stars. Our objectives are two- fold: First, we will detect or put a stringent limit on the presence of transiting megastructures; second, we will assess the frequency of transiting minor bodies in planetary systems." >"However, the proposed study will enable us to place the most stringent limits yet on the presence of large artificial structures orbiting stars in our Galaxy, and correspondingly on the presence of technologically advanced life." https://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/viewrepositorydocument/cmdocumentid=794680/solicitationId=%7BFD9340AF-CB68-3F16-38EF-C9440C3F3CCA%7D/viewSolicitationDocument=1/XRP20%20Abstracts.pdf https://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/viewrepositorydocument/...
- morpheos137 5y ago
- fnord77 5y ago> In 1993, NASA famously killed a search program intended to find microwave signals that were artificial in origin. “That had a chilling effect for a couple decades,” said Steve Croft, a radio astronomer and leader of the Breakthrough Listen project at the Berkeley SETI Research Center. yeah because it was pseudo-science.
- Crash0v3rid3 5y agoI hope we can one day identify intelligent life outside of Earth in my lifetime.
- pohl 5y agoI'd settle for any life beyond Earth or intelligent life on Earth.
- dangerbird2 5y agoTo quote Monty Python: "And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth."
- zoomablemind 5y ago> I hope we can one day identify intelligent life outside of Earth in my lifetime. Discovery of a simple life would be a big deal too. Perhaps the whole notion of intellegence or even our own origins could as well be affected by such a discovery.
- checkyoursudo 5y agoSimple life might be preferable, as it would be less likely to notice us and come annihilate us!
- bserge 5y agoOr the other way around... Although it would be great for humanity.
- black_puppydog 5y agoThe last astronomy cast is also about technosignatures. https://astronomycast.libsyn.com/ep-612-the-seti-renaissance https://astronomycast.libsyn.com/ep-612-the-seti-renaissance