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Astronomers have discovered a mysterious object flashing signals from deep space
- randomname4325 1y agoaliens?
- braiamp 1y agoMost likely, a very far away pulsar.
- delichon 1y agoPointed at Earth by aliens.
- ataru 1y agoAny self respecting alien would send the signal every 42 minutes.
- NewJazz 1y agoSee ya soon and please be ready with the fish!
- unsnap_biceps 1y agoIt says the burst lasts 2 minutes, so it would be 42 minutes of silence followed by 2 minutes of signal for a 44 minute cycle.
- hkt 1y agoMaybe there's more redshift than they intended!
- lostmsu 1y agoMany aliens would have to have computed the Answer independently as the news from Douglas haven't reached them yet.
- fuzztester 1y agoyou've got to think deeper. the concept of self respect itself may be alien to "aliens". it's a human construct / concept. also, stop calling them aliens. it is disrespectful. (otherwise they might zap us with their thought cannon, compared to which light sabers are like toothpicks.) they have as much right to be in this universe as we have. the term "alien" is a human and sci-fi construct. and sci-fi is, well, fi(ction). call them extra terrestrial beings, or just other beings. we need to realise that other beings can have other sets of values than we do, or even none. heck, they may not even have the concept of values. and there is nothing wrong with that. i can go on, but I'll stop here. my other being friends are calling me for a get together.
- 100721 1y agoI mean, there are humans without values. We don’t have to go far.
- fuzztester 1y agoif you mean hitler, he was an alien.
- decremental 1y ago[dead]
- NoPicklez 1y agoWell, they are alien to us, but that doesn't mean we need to alienate them. A being is also a human construct / concept.
- fuzztester 1y ago>Well, they are alien to us, but that doesn't mean we need to alienate them. True. I didn't see anyone saying that here. >A being is also a human construct / concept. Yep. It can be an alien one too, though.
- macrolime 1y agoPulsar with a period of rotation of 44 minutes?
- arthurcolle 1y agoProbably a magnetar. The scales of these things make me feel a deep sense of existential dread
- NewJazz 1y agoHave you read Death's End? Stop dreading and start living.
- giantg2 1y agoEh, let it happen.
- lgas 1y agoOut of curiosity, do you have any insight into why the existence of something large would make you feel dread?
- elorant 1y agoProbably because a magnetar could sterilize everything in a radius of dozens of light years if it has hiccup.
- chasd00 1y agoaren't pulsars and magnetars very small when talking about stars and planets? Google's AI says about 20km in diameter but would need to double check that. On the other hand, IIRC the energy output of a pulsar compared to its physical size is pretty scary. You wouldn't want one in your neighborhood.
- rkagerer 1y agoYes. Here are fact checks for those who don't trust the easy AI answer: https://www.britannica.com/science/pulsar https://www.britannica.com/science/pulsar https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar#Description https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar#Description They are both forms of neutron stars, which average around 20km but are the densest objects known to man. Fun fact, one sugar cube of their material would weigh about as much as a mountain (https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/objects/neutron_stars1.html https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/objects/neutron_stars1...).
- malux85 1y agoThis type of emission is not directed, right? Which means it's not firing "at" anything, it's just emitting in all directions.
- pkdpic 1y agoThat's a good point, I didn't catch any explanation for that choice of wording. Wonder if it was intentional.
- ianburrell 1y agoPulsars shoot beams out of their magnetic poles so they are directed but in a beam. Even the narrowest would be lots of stars. They are also spinning so they sweep a larger area.
- somat 1y agoMy natural first question is. If it is coming out of the pole, why is it sweeping? My guess, nothing is perfect, the rotation pole does not align exactly with the magnetic pole. A second followup question, do stars tend to be coaxially aligned with their galaxy? it it possible to tell which way a star or pulsar is rotating?
- dumah 1y agoThis is called the pulsar’s magnetic inclination and it’s often quite far from 0, all the way to nearly orthogonal. Yes but this is a dynamic process that produces more correlated stars as the galaxy ages. Astronomers routinely measure such parameters using models to provide confidence bounds for their estimates. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.13857 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.13857
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoThis type of emission may be directed (or at least, emitted by something rotating, so directed at different locations around a circle as it rotates). That would leave it firing at Earth some of the time, and firing other places at other times. Or, it could be something that flares up every 44 minutes, and is emitted in all directions at once. We really don't know.
- bradhe 1y agoPlease let it be the end.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- xqcgrek2 1y agoNot aliens sending signals, but some kind of interstellar industrial accident more likely.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- janalsncm 1y ago> ASKAP J1832-0911 At this level of entropy I wonder if they’re not better off using uuids instead.
- mithrene 1y agoThe name isn't random! It's common in astronomy to encode the targets position in the name in sexagesimal units. It's useful because you can read the name and immediately know where it is on the sky. In this case, J1832-0911 means a right ascension of 18h(hours) 32m(minutes) and a declination of -9°(degrees)11'(arcminutes). Using this, you could quickly work out whether it's visible from your location.
- metalman 1y agoit will end up bieng an advertainment channel transmitted by an exraterestrial AI looking for new customers after it outlived it's host species,
- antifa 1y agoEvery odd frame will be click bait, every even frame will be an ad.