Alien Megastructure?

[Unbeliever]

http://www.space.com/30855-alien-life-search-kepler-megastructure.html

The search for signs of life in a mysterious star system hypothesized to potentially harbor an "alien megastructure" is now underway.

Astronomers have begun using the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a system of radio dishes about 300 miles (483 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco, to hunt for signals coming from the vicinity of KIC 8462852, a star that lies 1,500 light-years from Earth.

NASA's Kepler space telescope found that KIC 8462852 dimmed oddly and dramatically several times over the past few years. The dimming events were far too substantial to be caused by a planet crossing the star's face, researchers say, and other possible explanations, such as an enormous dust cloud, don't add up, either.

Where’s the Flux?

Only 1,500 lightyears away? That seems very close. If there are aliens that close, then our galaxy must be really teeming with alien civilizations! I'll be interested to see what, if any, natural explanation they come up with for this one. I like the attitude that compels them to use the E.T. idea as the very last resort, as it would be silly to do otherwise, IMO.

[stromboli]

Read that a couple of days ago, but the jury is definitely still out. It would be cool, however.

[Cocoa Beware]

It's interesting to think that perhaps it's the result of some kind of unimaginably destructive battle, like a Death Star equivalent mowing down planetary bodies.

Perhaps a catastrophic mining accident.

Or perhaps the assembly of something like a Dyson's Sphere (A hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and most or all of its power output)



But I get the feeling this is a perhaps a rare, but natural phenomenon.

[pr126]

I hope it is not the Covenant.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

I hope it is not the Covenant.

It's worse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyenRCJ_4Ww

[GSOgymrat]

We look into the sky and see something we can't explain it's aliens, we see something on Earth we can't explain it's God.

[stromboli]

Assuming that an advanced culture is capable of building megastructures sufficient to block out the sun, it is a fair assumption they know about us, if we know about them. Either we don't rate much in their list of priorities or else they looked us over, said "meh" and went home. More likely there is another reason than aliens.

[trdsf]

http://www.space.com/30855-alien-life-search-kepler-megastructure.html


Where’s the Flux?

Only 1,500 lightyears away? That seems very close. If there are aliens that close, then our galaxy must be really teeming with alien civilizations! I'll be interested to see what, if any, natural explanation they come up with for this one. I like the attitude that compels them to use the E.T. idea as the very last resort, as it would be silly to do otherwise, IMO.

If 1500 light years is the average distance between intelligent species, that would imply around 200,000 intelligent species, using Carl Sagan's numbers (if I recall them right -- a million intelligent life forms in this galaxy would be on average about 300 light years apart from each other, I think he had in Broca's Brain).  And I appreciated Dr. Shostak's comments in the article about not reading too much into it.

I wouldn't expect to necessarily 'hear' anything from there anyway.  They can't know we're here, although if they're sufficiently advanced to have been able to resolve Earth independently of the Sun and perform spectrographic analysis, they would at best only know that something's going on here worth checking out: the presence of so much O₂ in the atmosphere.  Even if they were sufficiently advanced 3000+ years ago to send a probe, the most recent news they have about us is that we didn't have a technological civilization in 500CE.

But it's worth looking at with any equipment that seems a good idea.  One can't predict where the explanatory observation will come from, and it's as likely to turn up when looking for something else entirely.

[Atheon]

Maybe a rogue planet smashed into one of the star's planets, creating debris? There are plenty of explanations that don't invoke aliens.

[Unbeliever]

I wonder how a confirmation of the existence of tech-life at this (or any other) star system would affect life here on Earth? Sci-fi writers would have a field day, as would perhaps philosophers. How many religions might be conceived on such a basis is anyone's guess.

Certainly we will not be able to communicate with them, or vice versa, since any message/reply would be 3000 years in the completion. And travel, at least by us, is completely out of the question for a very long time.

So all we would have is the answer to the age-old question: are we alone? A negative answer to this question may change us in ways impossible to predict, for better or worse.

[stromboli]

If 1500 light years is the average distance between intelligent species, that would imply around 200,000 intelligent species, using Carl Sagan's numbers (if I recall them right -- a million intelligent life forms in this galaxy would be on average about 300 light years apart from each other, I think he had in Broca's Brain).  And I appreciated Dr. Shostak's comments in the article about not reading too much into it.

I wouldn't expect to necessarily 'hear' anything from there anyway.  They can't know we're here, although if they're sufficiently advanced to have been able to resolve Earth independently of the Sun and perform spectrographic analysis, they would at best only know that something's going on here worth checking out: the presence of so much O₂ in the atmosphere.  Even if they were sufficiently advanced 3000+ years ago to send a probe, the most recent news they have about us is that we didn't have a technological civilization in 500CE.

But it's worth looking at with any equipment that seems a good idea.  One can't predict where the explanatory observation will come from, and it's as likely to turn up when looking for something else entirely.

My point would be if we have the capability of finding them- assuming we do- then if they are capable of building such megastructures, they certainly have the capability of finding us. But 1,500 light years is a long way. Even if they sent robot craft it would take millennia to get here; and it is quite possible, given the technology, that they have identified other inhabited planets. But until/unless the speed of light is somehow overcome and something like a warp engine developed, doubtful any species or culture has the desire to bridge that distance just to contact another life form.

The other thing is that there is no known effort made to contact us, at least that we are aware of, so like I said previously, they might have scoped us out by whatever means they possess and decided we aren't worth their time. Even if they are more advanced technologically, the light barrier would still make getting messages out an impossible time. If they messaged us some way 500 years ago, it would still take 1,000 years to get here, and we might be extinct by then.

[josephpalazzo]

It's those Christians who have been raptured, dumb atheists...

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Maybe a rogue planet smashed into one of the star's planets, creating debris? There are plenty of explanations that don't invoke aliens.

I want to believe. *cue X-Files music*


Secretly a Warsie.

[Unbeliever]

My point would be if we have the capability of finding them- assuming we do- then if they are capable of building such megastructures, they certainly have the capability of finding us. But 1,500 light years is a long way. Even if they sent robot craft it would take millennia to get here; and it is quite possible, given the technology, that they have identified other inhabited planets. But until/unless the speed of light is somehow overcome and something like a warp engine developed, doubtful any species or culture has the desire to bridge that distance just to contact another life form.

The other thing is that there is no known effort made to contact us, at least that we are aware of, so like I said previously, they might have scoped us out by whatever means they possess and decided we aren't worth their time. Even if they are more advanced technologically, the light barrier would still make getting messages out an impossible time. If they messaged us some way 500 years ago, it would still take 1,000 years to get here, and we might be extinct by then.

It also seems to me that they should know that they're making themselves visible to far-off observers, yet they don't seem to be worried about becoming vulnerable to other tech-life. This could be because they know just how hard it is to get through the void.

I've been considering, for some time, a possible megastructure that we might be able to build before too long. We might build (at the same place where SOHO is at) a large panel that could simultaneously collect energy from the sun while blocking sunlight from the Earth, alleviating the global climet danger. I don't know how big it would have to be to block a few percent of the sun's light, but it would probably be considered a megastructure. It wouldn't even be observable by aliens, since it would always be between the Earth and the Sun. So we wouldn't have to worry about creating a threat even if aliens could get here.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

http://www.space.com/30855-alien-life-search-kepler-megastructure.html


Where’s the Flux?

Only 1,500 lightyears away? That seems very close. If there are aliens that close, then our galaxy must be really teeming with alien civilizations! I'll be interested to see what, if any, natural explanation they come up with for this one. I like the attitude that compels them to use the E.T. idea as the very last resort, as it would be silly to do otherwise, IMO.

If there are a lot of civilizations out there we'd have to ask why they would bother with us.