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Scientists hear ‘huge’, mysterious and repeating signal from deep in space

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The Reapers are coming!

ThI6unx.png

Is that a bad thing?
 
Fuck man, all this talk space talk recently is making me feel like something crazy is about to happen! We've been being watched this whole time... hmmmm
 
They'd probably just wipe out anyone affiliated with racism, psychopathy, or the republican party if we were close enough to being a race that doesn't still shoot off it's own damn foot and they felt that would truly speed up our culmination as a sustainable species. But we're not, we're barely aware enough to pick up on subtle emanations of communications sent between our alien overlords' home base and the ones among us.
 

Savitar

Member
Fuck man, all this talk space talk recently is making me feel like something crazy is about to happen! We've been being watched this whole time... hmmmm

Know how we joke about "Nope. Nuke it all from orbit it's the only way to be sure" stuff in regards to freaky spiders and other stuff that freaks people out.

They've been watching, the American politics going on has finally pushed them over the edge.
 
They'd probably just wipe out anyone affiliated with racism, psychopathy, or the republican party if we were close enough to being a race that doesn't still shoot off it's own damn foot and they felt that would truly speed up our culmination as a sustainable species. But we're not, we're barely aware enough to pick up on subtle emanations of communications sent between our alien overlords' home base and the ones among us.

Why would they care about any of that when they could be a survival of the fittest species that eats its own young.
 
It would be neat if we managed to find sentient radio transmissions if we look hard enough, like how were constantly sending out signal ourselves. Course the sad part is if it takes so long to reach us that civilization may be long dead.

:p plus we'd have another scientific discovery that politicians will pretend doesn't exist.
 

Mr.Mike

Member
If there are alien radio signals they would have probably been there all along no? And we just hadn't found them. Like, the odds of there not having been radio signals for us find, then eventually starting to receive alien radio signals and then discovering them would be really slim. I guess my point is if there are alien radio signals to be found, we are probably already receiving them and are simply unable to tell.

And considering the vast size of the universe it seems safe to guess that we aren't the only sentient beings in the universe that are capable of sending out radio signals. Thus we probably are receiving radio signals. I wonder if you took these signals and started applying ciphers to them if you could find something that seemed like a structured communication of some sort. Perhaps in various signals from the same location you could find a very similar pattern at the start of the bursts, implying some sort of standard message header.
 

Zips

Member
We are pretty much at the mercy of whatever alien species finds us first. Better hope they're friendly or we're fucked. It won't be like movies, we'll be extinguished in an instant. Or much worse, used as food, energy sources, slaves, god knows what else. Aliens are always thought of in a human way, the reality could be much different. Invisible gas monsters that absorb water in all forms(we're around 90% water).

All hail the sentient cloud.
 

Joel Was Right

Gold Member
It's pretty interesting to note the explosion of headlines we've had in the last 4 years regarding extraterrestrial life and water in the solar system.
 

XOMTOR

Member
From the link:

“"We're showing that whatever battery drives FRBs, it can recharge in minutes," said James Cordes, an astronomy professor at Cornell University, in a statement.

"The energy of the event becomes very problematic. We're detecting these FRBs from very far away, which means that they are intrinsically very bright. Only a few astrophysical sources can produce bursts like this, and we think they are most likely neutron stars in other galaxies."

Yea, not aliens.
 
N

NinjaFridge

Unconfirmed Member
Calling all Jan Michael Vincents
Calling all Jan Michael Vincents
 

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
From the link:



Yea, not aliens.

Err, except they then say that the fact that some signals repeat make it unlikely that they would be neutron stars. Your quote is about FRBs in general not this NEW discovery.

FRBs are not new, but scientists have just found out that numerous such signals repeat themselves. Hence the following:

Previously, scientists had thought that message was coming from something like the collision of neutron stars, sending a shockwave of energy across the universe. But the new findings show that the source of the energy isn’t being destroyed, since they send out more than one burst.

"In our paper, we're showing that our FRB can't have an explosive origin,” said Shami Chatterjee, a senior researcher at Cornell, in a statement. “So, either there's an odd coincidence, or maybe there are different types of FRBs.
 
Has this ever been proved to be something other than alien signal?

A paper just came out saying it came from a comet

Here's the abstract
On 1977 August 15, the Ohio State University Radio Observatory detected a strong narrowband signal northwest of the globular star cluster M55 in the constellation Sagittarius (Sgr) [1]. The frequency of the signal, which closely matched the hydrogen line (1420.40575177 MHz), peaked at approximately 23:16:01 EDT [2]. Since then, several investigations into the “Wow” signal have ruled out the source as terrestrial in origin or other objects such as satellites, planets and asteroids. From 1977 July 27 to 1977 August 15, comets 266P/Christensen and P/2008 Y2 (Gibbs) were transiting in the neighborhood of the Chi Sagittarii star group. Ephemerides for both comets during this orbital period placed them at the vicinity of the “Wow” signal [3]. Surrounding every active comet, such as 266P/Christensen and P/2008 Y2 (Gibbs), is a large hydrogen cloud with a radius of several million kilometers around their nucleus [4]. These two comets were not detected until after 2006, therefore, the comets and/or their hydrogen clouds were not accounted for during the “Wow” signal emission. Because the frequency for the “Wow” signal fell close to the hydrogen line, and the hydrogen clouds of 266P/Christensen and P/2008 Y2 (Gibbs) were in the proximity of the right ascension and declination values of the “Wow” signal, the comet(s) and/or their hydrogen clouds are strong candidates for the source of the 1977 “Wow” signal.

http://planetary-science.org/hydrog...idates-for-the-source-of-the-1977-wow-signal/
 

Parch

Member
I vaguely recall that there's some plausible theories out there. I think there is a lot of resistance amongst the community to accept anything other than an alien signal though.
There's resistance amongst the public to accept anything other an alien signal. I'm sure scientists have a different opinion.

It's almost impossible to have a thread on GAF about space exploration without it devolving into endless alien jokes.
 

El Topo

Member
There's resistance amongst the public to accept anything other an alien signal. I'm sure scientists have a different opinion.

Scientists are people like you and me. They have opinions, preferences, feelings, they can be very resistant to change (and pretty petty), see e.g. the history of the continental drift theory.
That is not to say that they wouldn't accept a theory with clear, undisputable, overwhelming evidence, both theoretical and practical.
 

XOMTOR

Member
Err, except they then say that the fact that some signals repeat make it unlikely that they would be neutron stars. Your quote is about FRBs in general not this NEW discovery.

FRBs are not new, but scientists have just found out that numerous such signals repeat themselves. Hence the following:

The article was quite poorly written actually and contained little of scientific value. Regardless, a repeating pattern is not unusual and in no way points to a non-natural source. The sheer energy levels in question pretty much ensure a natural event. The quote "— one that could even be created by alien technology." was clearly bait.
 
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