Grildon Tundy
Member
Exploration of Probability of a UAP Seen on Earth Originating from Another Planet
I ran some numbers on a pet theory of mine: that the UAPs we've been seeing and hearing about lately originated from somewhere far off and are self-replicating & self-repairing surveillance drones. I don't whole-heartedly ascribe to this concept, but I wanted to see how it looked with some numbers put to it. This thread was inspired by discussions in the Aliens & UFOs thread.
Milky Way Diameter: The Milky Way is ~100,000 light years across. From Earth, the furthest edge of the Milky Way is about 75,000 light years away, or 440,896,902,750,000,000 miles.
Assumption on Drone Origin: It's estimated that 500,000,000 planets in the Milky Way are hospitable for life. Let's assume just ONE of those planets as far away as possible from Earth within the Milky Way is the origin point of these drones.
Assumption on Speed of Drones: The fastest man-made object was the Parker Solar Probe, which went 330,000 miles per hour, or 0.05% the speed of light. If we use this as the top-speed of a drone, it would take 200,000,000 years (1.1% the age of the universe) for a single drone to reach Earth from the furthest point in the Milky Way. Alternatively, the fastest macroscopic mass observed by humans was the surface of a pulsar relative to its center, which went 5% of light speed. If the drones could go that fast, it would take 2,000,000 years (0.01% of the age of the universe). Of course, if a drone could basically go light-speed somehow, it'd take ~75,000 years, or 0.001% of the age of the universe.
Food for Thought: How likely do you think it is that another civilization could have reached the technological capabilities required to start sending drones going at those speeds to Earth between 75K - 200M years ago? In other words, an age-of-universe variance of 0.001% - 1.1%?
Food for Thought #2: How likely do you think it is that only one planet out of 500M (and the furthest one from us, at that) would be the only one to have a civilization that advanced?
Callout: I was going to build in a buffer about how long it would take humans to get from where we are now to tech at the levels we see in the UAPs (my rough estimate would be 100 -10,000 years). But with regards to the length of time it would take to travel the Milky Way (75K - 200M years), it seemed immaterial.
But Grildon Tundy , you big dummy, they'd have to know where we are in order to come directly at us that quick! How would they find us?!?!
Milky Way Volume: 8 trillion cubic light-years. Given the above assumptions, the drones would need to scan ~6 trillion cubic light years to find Earth. It's estimated that the Milky Way has 250 billion stars and potentially trillions of planets--so there's lots of raw material to go around for construction and repair.
Observational Capabilities of Drones: As others have pointed out, humans have only been sending out radio wave signals for the past 130 years. So let's say that the drones would have to rely on pure numbers and visual observation to find us. Keep in mind, my assumptions are not that they could have methods of observations unknown to us which would reduce the number of drones & time required.
Assumption on Drone Construction and Observation: Let's say you start with just one drone that can harvest resources common throughout the universe to make a single copy/another version of itself. And both of those drones can then make another round of copies. Even if a single drone was only responsible for observing the 1,000 cubic miles directly around it, within 75 rounds of duplication, you'd have enough drones to observe the 6 trillion cubic light years needed to find Earth. And if you're wondering about whether there's enough material to go around, the mass of the Milky Way is 5.8×10^11 Solar Masses, with only 5% of that being stars and planets I'd assume the drones would use as resources. Assuming a single drone uses 10,000KG of mass for creation and repair, it would take 0.000000000001% of the total mass of planets and stars in the Milky Way to create the 37,778,931,862,957,200,000,000 drones required in this assumption.
Food for Thought #3: How likely do you think it is that these drones would rely on visual detection and not an advanced method of observation unknown to us?
Callout: I think it'd be far more likely that a drone could observe more than 1,000 cubic miles, since they'd be traveling and not stationary, but I'll admit, I don't know how to model out a simulation like that. Not to mention they might have more advanced methods of observation.
I ran some numbers on a pet theory of mine: that the UAPs we've been seeing and hearing about lately originated from somewhere far off and are self-replicating & self-repairing surveillance drones. I don't whole-heartedly ascribe to this concept, but I wanted to see how it looked with some numbers put to it. This thread was inspired by discussions in the Aliens & UFOs thread.
Milky Way Diameter: The Milky Way is ~100,000 light years across. From Earth, the furthest edge of the Milky Way is about 75,000 light years away, or 440,896,902,750,000,000 miles.
Assumption on Drone Origin: It's estimated that 500,000,000 planets in the Milky Way are hospitable for life. Let's assume just ONE of those planets as far away as possible from Earth within the Milky Way is the origin point of these drones.
Assumption on Speed of Drones: The fastest man-made object was the Parker Solar Probe, which went 330,000 miles per hour, or 0.05% the speed of light. If we use this as the top-speed of a drone, it would take 200,000,000 years (1.1% the age of the universe) for a single drone to reach Earth from the furthest point in the Milky Way. Alternatively, the fastest macroscopic mass observed by humans was the surface of a pulsar relative to its center, which went 5% of light speed. If the drones could go that fast, it would take 2,000,000 years (0.01% of the age of the universe). Of course, if a drone could basically go light-speed somehow, it'd take ~75,000 years, or 0.001% of the age of the universe.
Food for Thought: How likely do you think it is that another civilization could have reached the technological capabilities required to start sending drones going at those speeds to Earth between 75K - 200M years ago? In other words, an age-of-universe variance of 0.001% - 1.1%?
Food for Thought #2: How likely do you think it is that only one planet out of 500M (and the furthest one from us, at that) would be the only one to have a civilization that advanced?
Callout: I was going to build in a buffer about how long it would take humans to get from where we are now to tech at the levels we see in the UAPs (my rough estimate would be 100 -10,000 years). But with regards to the length of time it would take to travel the Milky Way (75K - 200M years), it seemed immaterial.
But Grildon Tundy , you big dummy, they'd have to know where we are in order to come directly at us that quick! How would they find us?!?!
Milky Way Volume: 8 trillion cubic light-years. Given the above assumptions, the drones would need to scan ~6 trillion cubic light years to find Earth. It's estimated that the Milky Way has 250 billion stars and potentially trillions of planets--so there's lots of raw material to go around for construction and repair.
Observational Capabilities of Drones: As others have pointed out, humans have only been sending out radio wave signals for the past 130 years. So let's say that the drones would have to rely on pure numbers and visual observation to find us. Keep in mind, my assumptions are not that they could have methods of observations unknown to us which would reduce the number of drones & time required.
Assumption on Drone Construction and Observation: Let's say you start with just one drone that can harvest resources common throughout the universe to make a single copy/another version of itself. And both of those drones can then make another round of copies. Even if a single drone was only responsible for observing the 1,000 cubic miles directly around it, within 75 rounds of duplication, you'd have enough drones to observe the 6 trillion cubic light years needed to find Earth. And if you're wondering about whether there's enough material to go around, the mass of the Milky Way is 5.8×10^11 Solar Masses, with only 5% of that being stars and planets I'd assume the drones would use as resources. Assuming a single drone uses 10,000KG of mass for creation and repair, it would take 0.000000000001% of the total mass of planets and stars in the Milky Way to create the 37,778,931,862,957,200,000,000 drones required in this assumption.
Food for Thought #3: How likely do you think it is that these drones would rely on visual detection and not an advanced method of observation unknown to us?
Callout: I think it'd be far more likely that a drone could observe more than 1,000 cubic miles, since they'd be traveling and not stationary, but I'll admit, I don't know how to model out a simulation like that. Not to mention they might have more advanced methods of observation.