[HN Gopher] BLC1: A candidate signal around Proxima
___________________________________________________________________
BLC1: A candidate signal around Proxima
Author : weare138
Score : 34 points
Date : 2020-12-28 19:16 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sites.psu.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (sites.psu.edu)
| api wrote:
| I love the rationale for Proxima maybe being the most likely star
| to be transmitting directly toward us.
|
| Maybe it's a carrier signal for an alien equivalent of a public
| HAM repeater or a peer to peer mesh net node. It would
| effectively be a dial tone. Each node broadcasts toward, say, its
| three nearest neighbors. It sends a carrier that also
| periodically encodes info about how to use the node and the "IP
| addresses" of other known participants.
|
| Latency would suck though. A complete ping to another "live"
| station could take hundreds or thousands of years. The vast
| majority of repeater nodes could be dumb unmanned devices
| periodically sent out and placed in orbit around other stars.
|
| What if our solar system has one and we haven't noticed it
| because it's not that big, is in close solar orbit to easily
| harness a lot of power, and is only aiming its signals at our
| three nearest neighbors. Heh.
| WJW wrote:
| I like this idea! (though I don't think it's likely)
|
| Imagine if the creators of such a system have lifespans of tens
| to hundreds of millions of years and so could feasibly get
| somewhere in the galaxy even when travelling at sublight
| speeds. We'd be so alien to them that they likely wouldn't even
| think to look for us.
| centimeter wrote:
| Humans could have lifespans in the millions of years in the
| reference frames of planets in the galaxy, assuming they
| spent most of their time traveling at acceleration. I haven't
| done the math, but long-distance interstellar travel at >=1G
| could result in some pretty impressive time dilation.
| api wrote:
| I'm more imagining a collaborative effort much like amateur
| radio networks. Once you start talking you learn about the
| net and how to help add more nodes, etc. The node at Centauri
| might not be from there, but it might be from someone within
| a few hundred light years who has volunteered to maintain
| repeaters in their neighborhood.
|
| If we came online we would have to generate a call sign
| (however that is done, instructions repeated along with the
| carrier) and then start saying hi to nearby HAMs.
|
| There would probably be some forum etiquette. Might be a good
| idea to lurk a while before posting an intro thread. "Oh,
| look, another n00b asking about how to do net positive fusion
| power... read the FAQ on the wiki. Nearest mirror is at..."
| WJW wrote:
| With our luck the nearest mirror is 500 light years away
| and by that time we'd have figured it out ourselves. Oh
| well... :)
| yodsanklai wrote:
| As much as I love science fiction, I fail to get excited about
| this type of news. I'm convinced that intelligent life is
| pervasive in the universe, and also that we're not going to
| interact with them in any way.
| api wrote:
| Why? We haven't been looking very long or very hard.
| agar wrote:
| That we have not looked long or hard is why we have not (yet)
| found a signal. Interacting with an ETI will be much more
| problematic than finding a signal, given speed of light
| issues.
|
| Or did you misread the OP? He believes ETI _is_ pervasive,
| which seems a reasonable conclusion to extrapolate as Kepler
| fills in the F(p) and N(e) terms of the Drake equation.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| """Unfortunately, this news leaked out before the team had
| finished their analysis, so we're left to read tea leaves and
| parse vague newspaper statements instead of reading their paper
| on the topic (which does not exist because they're not done with
| their analysis!)
|
| Someone in the "astronomical community" (we don't know if they
| are even a member of the team) leaked the story to the Guardian.
| Their hand having been forced, the team then gave interviews to
| Scientific American and NatGeo with some more details,
| emphasizing that the signal is probably RFI. Now, I'm pretty
| grumpy about this. SETI has extensive post-detection protocols
| that were not followed by the leaker, exactly to avoid this sort
| of situation. Especially since the team was definitely going to
| announce this, there's no need for the leak."""
|
| ---
|
| It's a bit amusing that after decades of SETI touting their post-
| detection protocol, they couldn't even keep a sorta-maybe
| interesting find under wraps for five minutes before someone went
| running to the media.
|
| Where's Jodie Foster when you need her?
| zarmin wrote:
| No words. Should've sent a poet.
| imglorp wrote:
| It seems that lunar darkside observatory can't come soon enough:
| it would be immune to much of this suspected human interference.
| It would also be relatively easy to set up with existing robotic
| rover tech, laying long runs of wire on the surface.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-12-28 23:00 UTC)