Or like a lot of people do ants, they find them to be a nuisance or even totally beneath them and don't mind stomping on them if they get to be too annoying. Then again if we meet alien's it will probably be their nano machine emissaries that come to terraform our planet without caring whether we're here already or not. Basically All You Need is Kill/Edge of Tomorrow except we don't have time traveling Tom Cruise in power armor to save our asses.
Star exhibits strange light patterns which could be a sign of alien activity
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Or like a lot of people do ants, they find them to be a nuisance or even totally beneath them and don't mind stomping on them if they get to be too annoying. Then again if we meet alien's it will probably be their nano machine emissaries that come to terraform our planet without caring whether we're here already or not. Basically All You Need is Kill/Edge of Tomorrow except we don't have time traveling Tom Cruise in power armor to save our asses.
Halo's Covenant comes to mind.
here's one problem I have with the whole fermi paradox and "where's everybody?"
there's been plenty of time (nearly 14 billion years of universe evolution) which is more than enough time for intelligent creatures (if homo sapiens is anything to go by) to reach their potential in terms of evolution or inteligence.
so just with massive amount of chances (quintillions of planets, possible more outside the observable universe) there's surely one civilization that would have gotten past the great filter, if there is one.
I think it's very likely that that civilization has reached unimaginable understanding of reality and it was them who did the big bang.
This all sounds like some creationist crap but I think its pausible
what I am trying to get at is: if we believe that the fulfillment of evolution is possible, then it already happened and I will go as far as saying, this universe was made, I don't buy the "big bang came of nowhere" thing
there's been plenty of time (nearly 14 billion years of universe evolution) which is more than enough time for intelligent creatures (if homo sapiens is anything to go by) to reach their potential in terms of evolution or inteligence.
so just with massive amount of chances (quintillions of planets, possible more outside the observable universe) there's surely one civilization that would have gotten past the great filter, if there is one.
I think it's very likely that that civilization has reached unimaginable understanding of reality and it was them who did the big bang.
This all sounds like some creationist crap but I think its pausible
what I am trying to get at is: if we believe that the fulfillment of evolution is possible, then it already happened and I will go as far as saying, this universe was made, I don't buy the "big bang came of nowhere" thing
Hypothetically, if this was a Type II Civilization, they wouldn't give a damn about us. We're so primitive and useless to them. We didn't become sentient humans until 50,000 years ago and we're just now reaching Type I. Maybe 57,000 years from now something will reach out. That's depressing. I'm one of the people that believes Type III doesn't exist. It's hard to imagine not wiping yourself out at that point.
We would... the first time. Probably the second time and third time, too!
However, if they exist, and we exist... odds are that there are a *lot* of races with varying degrees of sentience out there, all around this and other galaxies. How much do you hear about it when a new species of bug is discovered in South America? The information is there if you want to make the effort to look for it, but it's (usually) not going to make the nightly news.
Technosteve
Banned
Can we nuke them?
if we are the first example of life oustide their planet of course they would care.
Two posts above me, yes if we are the first few examples they find, they care. However, if the eventually discover that earth is one of hundreds of millions of planets with life they probably wouldn't care anymore and would see that life eventually starts repeating or follows a very strict set of rules that it losses its uniqueness.
Although, on the other hand, it could be a race preoccupied with cataloging all life they find and storing the data forever to eventually be found by others.
LookAtMeGo
Member
Maybe they are us from the distant past an we came here after discovering earth to save the speicies from extinction and that is a defunct dyson sphere. A remnant of what we once were.
That big crater, I forget where, in the desert isnt actually from a commet or asteroid. Its the impact from the spherical ship that landed here with all the human incubators in it and it has since decayed.
That big crater, I forget where, in the desert isnt actually from a commet or asteroid. Its the impact from the spherical ship that landed here with all the human incubators in it and it has since decayed.
If they have the ability to construct a dyson sphere they would have the tech to construct weapons of magnitudes of power that we couldn't comprehend. Not only that but they wouldn't even need super scifi weapons. Just grab a big enough asteroid, get up to even ten percent of light speed and smash it straight into the Earth. There would be nothing we could do. Launch every single nuke in the world and it would do jack shit.
Edit: Thinking about it, even 1 percent of light speed would be enough to devastate the Earth with a meteor big as something like New York.
Regarding the, "where is everybody" line, I believe we're so primitive that we just now know what to look for and it's probably not the tip of the iceberg. We're looking for flickering stars that resemble ours. We do not have the technology to know if there is a potential developing species on some of these planets. In our lifetime, we will never know if this is in fact an advanced civilization. That depresses me. Another thing, I doubt an civilization that is advanced enough to harness the energy of a star would give a crap about us at all. They might check in on us and observe time to time, but we'll never know. I love math and find Drakes Equation to be fascinating. Personally, I believe it's mathematically impossible for us to be alone in the cosmos. Maybe everything around us is more primitive than us?
It's not that scientists are saying that the big bang came out of nowhere, it's that scientists dont know what happened before the big bang.
This. If such an advanced civilization exists, it's very likely they use types of communication that we have yet to know about. Also why would they try to seek us out? We would literally be like ants to them, or even less.
It's not even like human beings have been around long enough(or been advanced for long enough) for a hypothetical intergalatic alien species to take notice of us.
Good points. However, I'm one that believes we aren't one or two in our galaxy. I believe there are a lot. Advanced? Definitely not. If this was to be a type II civ they have the technology to be aware of our existence imo. Either they don't care; have been watching us; or we're so primitive we can't understand their contact(signals).
Violent crime rates decrease in human communities as they become more educated and prosperous. We have no way of knowing if that would be true for other species.
The reason that aliens don't contact us is that humans are the subject of every joke in the galaxy, and they don't want to ruin it.
one problem I see with the ant analogy is that we have awareness, we are aware of ourselves and our surroundings and each one of us can say "this is me and this is happening"
An ant can't do that.
If you kicked an anthill the ants around won't all of a sudden think "woah! there's this big creature and it destroyed our home!" ants won't think anything.
hell, even if you saw the ants from a certain distance, you being visibly enough for them, they wouldn't be able to recognize anything about you. For their brains, you are essentially the same as a rock or a tree, just another hurdle of nature to cross around.
we aren't ants so if aliens are anywhere near us (even if they don't interact) , we would be able to tell them apart from everything else we know so far so I definitely think that they aren't pulling pranks on us or interacting.
so either there are some pretty freaky, crazy realms of reality (Dark matter??) we aren't aware of and they hang out there or they just aren't around us, at all.
or said in other words, they are outside the observable universe (aka, in another universe) and they watch from there but we are like the simplest of life forms to them, like a scientist watching bacteria under the microscope in a lab.
Dreadnought
Member
MUUUUUURRRRPPHHH
You assume these creatures feel empathy. What happens if they have no such notion of that or ideas and feelings like compassion or love. For all we know they could be ants that achieved space travel and all we would ever encounter are drones that just see us as meat to eat. While the true intelligence is never actually encountered.
Ken K in the Fresh!!!
Member
I was thinking, if there's a civilization out there advanced enough to achieve interstellar travel, I'd figure that they would have the technology to "camouflage" themselves from our eyes and ears
I think it would be scarier if space itself somehow evolved its own creature that just went around eating planets as snacks.
Like...temperatures that would freeze you instantly, no oxygen, tons of radiation, basically Superman, but instead of Superman it's unfathomable in size and looks like this
Like...temperatures that would freeze you instantly, no oxygen, tons of radiation, basically Superman, but instead of Superman it's unfathomable in size and looks like this
A couple of thoughts:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Kepler wasn't just looking for changes in brightness to indicate the presence of a planet, right? Because that only works if we just happen to be viewing the system edge-on, which would seem to narrow down the results rather significantly.
The other primary indicator for a planet is the "wobble" of the star itself in response to the gravitational effects of the planets around it. Our own star's barycenter is frequently outside of its physical radius thanks to Jupiter, this is something that would be visible from quite a distance away, and from practically any angle, not just edge-on.
My initial thought on KIC 8462852 is that we're seeing the transit of a brown dwarf, one that's a larger percentage of the size of the main star than we would otherwise expect. But, I would assume that a second star of that size would have a significant impact on the barycenter of the main star, and we would see a pronounced wobble that would line up with a large object performing a transit. In other words, they should have ruled out a second star by now. It also doesn't explain the odd timing of the transits... a single large object would pass at regular intervals, and we're not seeing that.
I didn't see anything on the star's wiki page about its barycenter, has it been measured? If not, given how many telescopes are pointed that way right now, hopefully we can get a measurement that should tell us a lot more about the structure of the system than we know now.
No, I don't think it's a Dyson Sphere. I'm in the camp that it's a natural phenomenon of some kind. If we do find out what it is, it'll be interesting to people that are into that sort of thing, like me (and presumably, everyone else in this thread), but will otherwise be somewhat underwhelming to everyone else.
As for the Fermi Paradox, it's my belief that we haven't seen anything because we're not really looking. Oh, sure, we're pointing our radio telescopes around, but even if the rather large assumption that aliens are using radios on the level of ours is true, most normal radio traffic barely leaves the system. By the time it reaches the next star, it's practically indistinguishable from background radiation, and that's only a few light years away. Yes, radio signals can travel those types of interstellar distances, but they have to be very high powered and very focused. Meaning someone would have to intentionally send a very particular type of radio signal directly at us in order for us to pick anything up. And we have to be looking at exactly the right spot in the sky at exactly the right time. And be looking for exactly the right type of radio signal, and it would have to fall within the frequencies that we're monitoring. That's a whole lot of "if"... maybe a bit too much to simply assume that we would have randomly "picked up something" by now. And also the rather large assumption that they're using radio at all. We've only had it for a hundred years or so.. it's a bit presumptuous to assume that everyone else is using it, and that even if they were, that the timing alone would happen to allow those signals to pass our way in the last, what... forty years or so? That's less than the blink of an eye in cosmic time.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Kepler wasn't just looking for changes in brightness to indicate the presence of a planet, right? Because that only works if we just happen to be viewing the system edge-on, which would seem to narrow down the results rather significantly.
The other primary indicator for a planet is the "wobble" of the star itself in response to the gravitational effects of the planets around it. Our own star's barycenter is frequently outside of its physical radius thanks to Jupiter, this is something that would be visible from quite a distance away, and from practically any angle, not just edge-on.
My initial thought on KIC 8462852 is that we're seeing the transit of a brown dwarf, one that's a larger percentage of the size of the main star than we would otherwise expect. But, I would assume that a second star of that size would have a significant impact on the barycenter of the main star, and we would see a pronounced wobble that would line up with a large object performing a transit. In other words, they should have ruled out a second star by now. It also doesn't explain the odd timing of the transits... a single large object would pass at regular intervals, and we're not seeing that.
I didn't see anything on the star's wiki page about its barycenter, has it been measured? If not, given how many telescopes are pointed that way right now, hopefully we can get a measurement that should tell us a lot more about the structure of the system than we know now.
No, I don't think it's a Dyson Sphere. I'm in the camp that it's a natural phenomenon of some kind. If we do find out what it is, it'll be interesting to people that are into that sort of thing, like me (and presumably, everyone else in this thread), but will otherwise be somewhat underwhelming to everyone else.
As for the Fermi Paradox, it's my belief that we haven't seen anything because we're not really looking. Oh, sure, we're pointing our radio telescopes around, but even if the rather large assumption that aliens are using radios on the level of ours is true, most normal radio traffic barely leaves the system. By the time it reaches the next star, it's practically indistinguishable from background radiation, and that's only a few light years away. Yes, radio signals can travel those types of interstellar distances, but they have to be very high powered and very focused. Meaning someone would have to intentionally send a very particular type of radio signal directly at us in order for us to pick anything up. And we have to be looking at exactly the right spot in the sky at exactly the right time. And be looking for exactly the right type of radio signal, and it would have to fall within the frequencies that we're monitoring. That's a whole lot of "if"... maybe a bit too much to simply assume that we would have randomly "picked up something" by now. And also the rather large assumption that they're using radio at all. We've only had it for a hundred years or so.. it's a bit presumptuous to assume that everyone else is using it, and that even if they were, that the timing alone would happen to allow those signals to pass our way in the last, what... forty years or so? That's less than the blink of an eye in cosmic time.
QuantumZebra
Member
Good post - however I believe they accounted for the drift of a Brown Dwarf - AFAIK the fluctuations were sporadic in nature and cyclical - a dwarf drifting would be a sustained dimming for at least longer than the 80 days it was cycling.
Multiple astronomers are hitting a dead-end here.
call_kotaku
Member
If we do prove that it's somehow a dyson sphere/swarm, it atleast demonstrates that the concept is workable and a far more advanced civilization couldn't manage to develop some other form of energy collection.
Also, if I understand correctly, the Kepler project only monitored a small section of the Milky Way. Is it possible that there might be multiple stars with similar phenomenon in the galaxy that we just haven't observed?
Also, if I understand correctly, the Kepler project only monitored a small section of the Milky Way. Is it possible that there might be multiple stars with similar phenomenon in the galaxy that we just haven't observed?
PrivateWHudson
Member
Just in case the dyson swarm is being used to power ftl travel/communication and this tread is being monitored... I volunteer to be brought back to our home world for the big reunion.
Advanced aliens have probably already figured out quantum entanglement or some sub space level of communications we can't even detect. Even if we could see it it would probably be encrypted so hard we could never crack it, not like we could even understand what they where saying even if it was plain text!
If you did want to communicate (or leave a message on your way to another dimension) artificially dimming a star would be pretty smart.
What if it's a code in itself to whatever frequency of communications they are using. What if it's a history of a long gone civilization. What if it's just some space graffiti. Or just space dust.
If you did want to communicate (or leave a message on your way to another dimension) artificially dimming a star would be pretty smart.
What if it's a code in itself to whatever frequency of communications they are using. What if it's a history of a long gone civilization. What if it's just some space graffiti. Or just space dust.
Subpar Spatula
Banned
You can be violent and space faring. Human existence is one of many ways intelligent life can form. Just as Skynet can kill humans so can beings we find more confusing than our current version of robots.
The Lone Courier
Member
So whats the drunk ELI5 explanation of this? Its a star that gets brighter in certain spots. And aliens are controlling this star?
Alebrije
Member
Think they won't come to earth ,our virus , bacteria and fungus will kill them
But what if they're Kryptonians and all our atmosphere does is turn them into nigh all-powerful demigods?
It's a giant star eating amoeba.
No one knows so people are just making stuff up. Real scientists are doing math and stuff to try and figure it out. It will probably be 50 years until someone come up with a correct hypothesis that can be tested.
Insane Metal
Gold Member
This is so exciting.
My uneducated guess is that there's 99,99999999999999% chance this is just some kind of phenomenon we've never seen before, and we will learn a lot from this in the future. To comprehend what is going on, we will probably need a lot of time and dedication, these things are incredibly complex.
Today we know a lot about the universe, but there's also a whole lot more we still don't know, and this is one of the events that highlight this.
My uneducated guess is that there's 99,99999999999999% chance this is just some kind of phenomenon we've never seen before, and we will learn a lot from this in the future. To comprehend what is going on, we will probably need a lot of time and dedication, these things are incredibly complex.
Today we know a lot about the universe, but there's also a whole lot more we still don't know, and this is one of the events that highlight this.
Electric Eye
Banned
The star is probably the cheese at the other end of the maze. I like the theory of it all being a simulation it would make sense for a species that probably long ago moved on from the biological to want to create a simulator to understand its own past and origins. They probably do see everything we do and our planet is itself a giant array of sensors. Maybe someday we do get so advance we reach that star and it ends up being the reset button.
Subpar Spatula
Banned
Nanomachines would give prevent a lot of these.
Chances are it's something super common but we don't necessarily know because we can't observe it better. No scientist wants to put anything down as fact because, really, it's hard to prove it's just debris.
An otherwise normal-looking star (in that it's not that dissimilar to our own) is dimming in several ways that no star has ever been observed to do:
-rapid, irregular light decreases of 10% or more lasting for a few days
-a 2.5% light decrease lasting for at least one year
-a likely long-term dimming perhaps spanning more than a century
There are no working theories for this behavior; however, it *may* fit the type of light blocking signal we would see from a major highly advanced construction project around a star (think solar system-scale solar panels - a dyson swarm).
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
That last one was debunked if I recall right,
This is something I've thought about before, and something I find simultaneously depressing and exciting. It might be out of place for me to discuss it in this thread though, seeing as it's sort of the opposite of the topic.
BizzyBum
Member
When it comes to the Fermi Paradox, I believe the universe is simply too massive to come in contact with many sentient species. However, I do believe "ancient aliens" have visited us to help us evolve at our early stages of civilization, as if giving us a kick start in the right direction. Now we are just observed periodically and also made sure we don't destroy ourselves into oblivion (Greys stepping in to stop a launch of a nuclear weapon, for instance).
The Great Filter is interesting. I feel it's still ahead of us. Once we develop the technology of advanced simulation, how can we not get trapped within it? Why deal with reality when we can live in a perfect simulation? Why do anything when we have AI more advanced then us doing everything we used to do but more efficient? We begin to become complacent. Or... we simply destroy ourselves before reaching anything worthwhile. The "Big 3" for me are war, natural disaster, or if we pass those two, simulation. Reaching Type III takes far too long and cannot happen without at least one of the three happening.
Also, space is fucking scary. Unless we get some Star Trek-like mofo's to come visit us and share their technology it's probable that interstellar travel is not even worth it. Yeah, if you can branch out to nearby planets or solar system's to avoid extinction of your species that's fine, but we're talking travelling billions of light years via wormholes. There's no reason to do it. I mean, take the Eridanus Great Void for example. That part of the universe is completely void of anything for 1.8 billion light years. Not even Dark Matter resides there. Can you imagine just travelling for 1.8 billion light years in pure blackness?
The Great Filter is interesting. I feel it's still ahead of us. Once we develop the technology of advanced simulation, how can we not get trapped within it? Why deal with reality when we can live in a perfect simulation? Why do anything when we have AI more advanced then us doing everything we used to do but more efficient? We begin to become complacent. Or... we simply destroy ourselves before reaching anything worthwhile. The "Big 3" for me are war, natural disaster, or if we pass those two, simulation. Reaching Type III takes far too long and cannot happen without at least one of the three happening.
Also, space is fucking scary. Unless we get some Star Trek-like mofo's to come visit us and share their technology it's probable that interstellar travel is not even worth it. Yeah, if you can branch out to nearby planets or solar system's to avoid extinction of your species that's fine, but we're talking travelling billions of light years via wormholes. There's no reason to do it. I mean, take the Eridanus Great Void for example. That part of the universe is completely void of anything for 1.8 billion light years. Not even Dark Matter resides there. Can you imagine just travelling for 1.8 billion light years in pure blackness?
rokkerkory
Member
Trump will make it great again somehow
karasu
Member
When it comes to the Fermi Paradox, I believe the universe is simply too massive to come in contact with many sentient species. However, I do believe "ancient aliens" have visited us to help us evolve at our early stages of civilization, as if giving us a kick start in the right direction. Now we are just observed periodically and also made sure we don't destroy ourselves into oblivion (Greys stepping in to stop a launch of a nuclear weapon, for instance).
The Great Filter is interesting. I feel it's still ahead of us. Once we develop the technology of advanced simulation, how can we not get trapped within it? Why deal with reality when we can live in a perfect simulation? Why do anything when we have AI more advanced then us doing everything we used to do but more efficient? We begin to become complacent. Or... we simply destroy ourselves before reaching anything worthwhile. The "Big 3" for me are war, natural disaster, or if we pass those two, simulation. Reaching Type III takes far too long and cannot happen without at least one of the three happening.
Also, space is fucking scary. Unless we get some Star Trek-like mofo's to come visit us and share their technology it's probable that interstellar travel is not even worth it. Yeah, if you can branch out to nearby planets or solar system's to avoid extinction of your species that's fine, but we're talking travelling billions of light years via wormholes. There's no reason to do it. I mean, take the Eridanus Great Void for example. That part of the universe is completely void of anything for 1.8 billion light years. Not even Dark Matter resides there. Can you imagine just travelling for 1.8 billion light years in pure blackness?
I agree. That is terrifying. I'm sure there are some Hal Jordan mofos out there willing to do it though.
I think it would be scarier if space itself somehow evolved its own creature that just went around eating planets as snacks.
Like...temperatures that would freeze you instantly, no oxygen, tons of radiation, basically Superman, but instead of Superman it's unfathomable in size and looks like this
Google Hellstar Remina.
When it comes to the Fermi Paradox, I believe the universe is simply too massive to come in contact with many sentient species. However, I do believe "ancient aliens" have visited us to help us evolve at our early stages of civilization, as if giving us a kick start in the right direction. Now we are just observed periodically and also made sure we don't destroy ourselves into oblivion (Greys stepping in to stop a launch of a nuclear weapon, for instance).
The Great Filter is interesting. I feel it's still ahead of us. Once we develop the technology of advanced simulation, how can we not get trapped within it? Why deal with reality when we can live in a perfect simulation? Why do anything when we have AI more advanced then us doing everything we used to do but more efficient? We begin to become complacent. Or... we simply destroy ourselves before reaching anything worthwhile. The "Big 3" for me are war, natural disaster, or if we pass those two, simulation. Reaching Type III takes far too long and cannot happen without at least one of the three happening.
Also, space is fucking scary. Unless we get some Star Trek-like mofo's to come visit us and share their technology it's probable that interstellar travel is not even worth it. Yeah, if you can branch out to nearby planets or solar system's to avoid extinction of your species that's fine, but we're talking travelling billions of light years via wormholes. There's no reason to do it. I mean, take the Eridanus Great Void for example. That part of the universe is completely void of anything for 1.8 billion light years. Not even Dark Matter resides there. Can you imagine just travelling for 1.8 billion light years in pure blackness?
if you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you
That's actually an interesting idea, basically humans/living organisms basically being bacteria cultures for observation by other species. We facilitate organic life/growth all the time with things like bacteria, forest restoration, etc..., wouldn't be too far of a stretch to think that civilizations advanced enough would do similar things on a bigger scale with planets and life and whatnot (though the timeframe for that stuff would be huge, admittedly)
Sniffynose
Member
I don't want to be "that guy" but shouldn't the No Man's Sky hype thread be in the Games side of the forums?
Edit: and you guys need to spoiler tag this shit!
Edit: and you guys need to spoiler tag this shit!
exmachina64
Banned
Of course the Big Bang didn't come out of nowhere, it's just likely beyond our ability to ever discern the origins of it.
Sure that could work, but it would take many years to arrive even at 10% of the speed of light.
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