4 ms·
> In 2012, on the 35th anniversary of the Wow! signal, Arecibo Observatory beamed a response from humanity, containing 10,000 Twitter messages, in the direction
by Mithaldu 11y ago
> In 2012, on the 35th anniversary of the Wow! signal, Arecibo Observatory beamed a response from humanity, containing 10,000 Twitter messages, in the direction from which the signal originated.
What.
Receive possible signal from intelligence in other star system. Send back tweets.
What.
- cgriswald 11y agoThey are really sending two messages. To anyone listening out there: "We are here." To humans on Earth: "Pay attention to us." Although it is kind of ironic using tweets to show that a signal is not just random noise.
- mkr-hn 11y agoThis edge is so sharp you cut a portal through time from 2010.
- nickpsecurity 11y agoHeck yeah he did. That was great.
- api 11y agoA relativistic velocity kinetic weapon is already on its way.
- Mithaldu 11y agoThat would be an amazingly impressive turnaround time given that our tweets likely haven't physically made it even a promille towards where that signal came from! :D
- nickpsecurity 11y agoWhat if they're only pretending to be that far away? And it's a probe right in or near the solar system? Could these people really tell the difference?
- cgriswald 11y agoWe only know the two possible RA and dec, not the distance. So a probe in or near the solar system is possible. It could also explain why we did not detect the signal again; the probe's position would not be as fixed as a distant star.
- nickpsecurity 11y agoThere we go. So, it could be the one's that are allegedly already here just trying to get our attention. I'm still for exploring those underground caverns in the moon. Might catch them sleeping.
- nickpsecurity 11y agoI was in shock reading this too. It's possible that the extraterrestrials read that stuff, determine our intelligence to be extremely low, and not bother with us again. Or they'll send Andromeda earlier. ;)
- gregwtmtno 11y agoWell not possible yet. Even Alpha Centauri is 4 light years away.
- nickpsecurity 11y agoAnother commenter already acknowledged the possibility that it only appears to be that far away and the signal could come from the edge of the solar system (maybe passing through it). Would explain why it was brief and appeared to come from a place having about nothing. The comment you replied to was a joke, though, so it doesn't really matter.
- msane 11y agoSeems like a good encoding of what we are: a babbling throng of socially connected low-level cognition nodes, occasionally galvanized or sent off in some direction by a smaller set of higher cognition control nodes. Maybe it was a very intentional communication...