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Astronomers detect radio signal billions of light-years away

JacksinPA

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Astronomers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and universities in Canada and the U.S. say they have detected a radio signal from a far-away galaxy that is flashing repetitively.

In research published in the Journal Nature, authored by members of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME)/FRB Collaboration, the scientists said a fast radio burst (FRB) has been located several billion light-years from Earth.

CHIME is an interferometric radio telescope at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in British Columbia, Canada. It is designed to detect radio waves emitted by hydrogen in the earliest stages of the universe, and it has detected hundreds of FRBs.
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Scientists decoded this to mean 'Knock knock. Anyone home?'
 
Hopefully the source for this detected radio signal is an intelligence that is superior to the shit show that is humanity.
 
Hopefully the source for this detected radio signal is an intelligence that is superior to the shit show that is humanity.

What if they're worse?

"Help! Help! Fascists have a supernova bomb. Send FTL as soon as possible!"
 
Monsters looking for food. Of course, humans will wave their arms and attract attention.
 
Monsters looking for food. Of course, humans will wave their arms and attract attention.
Recall the TZ episode To Serve Man. He was on their ship heading for their home world when he figured out that they wanted to use humans as food, him first.
 
Recall the TZ episode To Serve Man. He was on their ship heading for their home world when he figured out that they wanted to use humans as food, him first.

They'd have to be pretty dumb to eat an adult human. Much better to capture a breeding pair and eat the children!
 
And if it turns out to be just another mirage. That it is simply a part of nature. That we are alone in the universe. And why I keep thinking about the fact that they only use white mice in experiments.
 
And if it turns out to be just another mirage. That it is simply a part of nature. That we are alone in the universe. And why I keep thinking about the fact that they only use white mice in experiments.
It's not a mirage so much as it's just a natural emission of radio frequency photons.

I doubt an advanced alien civilization is going to use radio waves to communicate.
 
If aliens exist, they’re avoiding us like the plague LOL
The number of galaxies is too large to calculate. And in each one is another very large number of planets that could harbor living things. The odds of life existing nowhere else than Earth are vanishingly small.
 
Hopefully the source for this detected radio signal is an intelligence that is superior to the shit show that is humanity.


Encounters between higher technology civilizations and lower technology civilizations almost never end well for the latter bunch.
The best we could hope for is that they regard us as amusing house pets.
The worst....Kang and Kodos or "Armageddon" where they're like predators eating up resources on planets that they visit.

The idea that they would be benign and generous of spirit a la Star Trek, would be the biggest miracle in history.
 
It's not a mirage so much as it's just a natural emission of radio frequency photons.

I doubt an advanced alien civilization is going to use radio waves to communicate.

I don't because advanced races seeking to communicate with primitive ones would resort to primitive means to better their chances.
I guarantee you the idea of "RADIO" would be a natural part of tech evolution anywhere because radio is radio ANYWHERE.
It works because it's universal.
 
I don't because advanced races seeking to communicate with primitive ones would resort to primitive means to better their chances.
I guarantee you the idea of "RADIO" would be a natural part of tech evolution anywhere because radio is radio ANYWHERE.
It works because it's universal.
We only really used analog radio transmissions for a couple decades. On a galactic scale, that's absurdly short.

It would be a terrible choice even if you make the absolutely wild assumption that every civilization would use radio waves.
 
Wouldn't worry about someone actually being behind the signals. Radio waves travel at the speed of light, they say the signals are from billions of light years away. So what ever sent them may no longer even exist, the signals we are getting now are ancient history billions of years old.
 
Wouldn't worry about someone actually being behind the signals. Radio waves travel at the speed of light, they say the signals are from billions of light years away. So what ever sent them may no longer even exist, the signals we are getting now are ancient history billions of years old.
Or maybe they've been busy printing more copies of 'To Serve Man.'
 
We only really used analog radio transmissions for a couple decades. On a galactic scale, that's absurdly short.

It would be a terrible choice even if you make the absolutely wild assumption that every civilization would use radio waves.

It is the electromagnetic spectrum being manipulated in the most human readable manner imaginable.
After all humans with crude dental fillings have been able to detect analog RF and demod it to audio in their mouths or by rubbing a piece of crystal.
Difficult to imagine an evolutionary path for RF comm that doesn't start with that.
 
It is the electromagnetic spectrum being manipulated in the most human readable manner imaginable.
After all humans with crude dental fillings have been able to detect analog RF and demod it to audio in their mouths or by rubbing a piece of crystal.
Difficult to imagine an evolutionary path for RF comm that doesn't start with that.
Human-centric thinking is your issue here.
 

Astronomers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and universities in Canada and the U.S. say they have detected a radio signal from a far-away galaxy that is flashing repetitively.

In research published in the Journal Nature, authored by members of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME)/FRB Collaboration, the scientists said a fast radio burst (FRB) has been located several billion light-years from Earth.

CHIME is an interferometric radio telescope at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in British Columbia, Canada. It is designed to detect radio waves emitted by hydrogen in the earliest stages of the universe, and it has detected hundreds of FRBs.
========================================================
Scientists decoded this to mean 'Knock knock. Anyone home?'

"In 2020, astronomers reported narrowing down the source of fast radio bursts, which may now plausibly include "compact-object mergers and magnetars arising from normal core collapse supernovae".[19][20][21] A neutron star has been proposed as the origin of an unusual FRB with periodic peaks lasting over 3 seconds reported in 2022."
 
What does this even mean?
Since humans are carbon based mammalian life forms, you're suggesting that we either interpret universal laws of physics and their effect on those differently for other species or you require us to leave carbon based life forms altogether.
A mammalian life form is going to have to stick with the laws of physics on the EM spectrum in the same ways, namely modulating a burst of RF energy in some way.
Human readable does not shy from expanding itself to other mammalian carbon life forms, it means that "meat with eyes and a brain" will read such modulated emissions in roughly the same way, just as holding up a piece of film will be "read" by dogs the same way it is "read" by humanoids.
I'd even expand to include reptilian or fish, perhaps even insects. Still carbon based and still bound by the same RF laws.

That is the approach used when NASA built "Voyager". The message disc aboard that spacecraft was made "human readable" by any humanoid carbon based species.

HUMAN READABLE is ET readable if ET is a carbon based life form with even remotely similar characteristics.

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Since humans are carbon based mammalian life forms, you're suggesting that we either interpret universal laws of physics and their effect on those differently for other species or you require us to leave carbon based life forms altogether.
A mammalian life form is going to have to stick with the laws of physics on the EM spectrum in the same ways, namely modulating a burst of RF energy in some way.
Human readable does not shy from expanding itself to other mammalian carbon life forms, it means that "meat with eyes and a brain" will read such modulated emissions in roughly the same way, just as holding up a piece of film will be "read" by dogs the same way it is "read" by humanoids.
I'd even expand to include reptilian or fish, perhaps even insects. Still carbon based and still bound by the same RF laws.

That is the approach used when NASA built "Voyager". The message disc aboard that spacecraft was made "human readable" by any humanoid carbon based species.

HUMAN READABLE is ET readable if ET is a carbon based life form with even remotely similar characteristics.

View attachment 67402915
This is utter gibberish. Which part of this means I "must show something other than the EM spectrum?"
 
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