SETI: On the Verge of a Breakthrough?

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: Hyperia
a reply to: schuyler
Edit to add: It's 1481 light years from us.

And if it were a proto Dyson Sphere.. thank gawk any signal we could have produced won't get there for at least 1350+ year or more...

edit on 13-10-2015 by slip2break because: (no reason given)

originally posted by: reldra
a reply to: slip2break

Black holes will eat light. I am not aware of anything else that could...but that doesn't mean there isn;t something else there. Nice find. s&f

Was thnking the same thing, Primal black holes can be very small and I would assume would cause the same effect

originally posted by: Hyperia
a reply to: schuyler

So he implies the anomaly could be an advanced type 2 alien structure?

No, he posits that a type 2 civ would possibly use this sort of technology as a means to produce energy, his theory is totally separate from the news story

originally posted by: slip2break

And if it were a proto Dyson Sphere.. thank gawk any signal we could have produced won't get there for at least 1350+ year or more...

And what we are seeing now is already 1481 years in the past. But astronomically speaking, a couple thousand years is not a lot, plus that assumes light speed is a real issue. Regardless, it's certainly worth further study, and it sounds like that's where they're headed. They want to get a giant radio telescope pointed that way as soon as possible.

Here is video explaining the different types of civilization, and type 2 Civilization is what this article is suggesting might be what the unknown object is ascribed to be an energy harnessing thingy.

the sun has a small astroid belt.
what if a young star had a Big astroid belt
and a big planet going around ever 80 years.
thats fast! or two at ever 160 years?

Interesting find, but the idea that the star picked something from another system seems plausible to me, not so long ago it was determined that a star passed the sun closer than a light year.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

There are also orphan planets around, who knows, eagerly awaiting till january now, most likely nothing will happen then

Taking energy from the sun seems to us an obvious way to produce great amounts of energy, and perhaps that is the path this hypothetical civilization took. But I would not say it is a given for any advanced civ. Some may discover other forms of energy, and energy extraction/harvest. Forms that do not require such gigantic structures, perhaps.

a reply to: 3n19m470

I agree can you imagine the trial and error with making such a megastructure? You would have to make sure the same amount photons reach the planet correct?

Fit for any contact movie if SETI finds anything. Damn, just think.... something real. BS ends here. Strange, like "I think, therefore I am."
Well, "I think, therefore I am. I think." Lol. But all for good measure.

I'm dreaming. I don't think they'll find anything. Personally, I agree with the other poster who thought maybe they'd do something else. It seems logical to us today that since we've always used the sun for energy, well we'll continue to do that, won't we? But we can be wrong.

Here's an example of scanning our cosmos for large scale technological civilizations, except it's galactic in size:
www.astrobio.net - Advanced Alien Civilizations Rare or Absent in the Local Universe ...

The technique applied by Professor Garrett can also be used to help identify less advanced (Kardashev Type II) alien civilizations that command more limited resources on sub-galactic scales. Such civilizations are still considerably more advanced than our own (Earth is not yet on the Kardashev Type I scale) but they might be more common as a result.

Professor Garrett has plans to look for these less advanced civilizations: “It’s a bit worrying that Type III civilizations don’t seem to exist. It’s not what we would predict from the physical laws that explain so well the rest of the physical universe. We’re missing an important part of the jigsaw puzzle here. Perhaps advanced civilizations are so energy efficient that they produce very low waste heat emission products — our current understanding of physics makes that a difficult thing to do. What’s important is to keep on searching for the signatures of extraterrestrial intelligence until we fully understand just what is going on.”

a reply to: jonnywhite

I read this article before and it is interesting. But, a type III civilization is so far beyond us, it is ridiculous to think we could detect one. A type 2 civilization is more imaginable, but, I doubt we would know how to detect one of those either. Further, finding a Type II is like looking for a needle in a haystack. I understanding wanting to try. But, if we were successful, we probably shouldn't reach out too far to them....

I think we are much more likely to identify a habitable planet within 400 light years by more conventional means. I am beginning to doubt there is intelligent ET that close to us. But, I would expect to find animal or marine life on 20 or so planets within that range of the earth. IN thousands of years, perhaps we will colonize those worlds....

If a civilization can control a galaxy, Type III, we are all doomed if they need to expand. I am guessing this is a type that is theoretical but doesn't really exist. What if Type II is all there is. Interstellar travel is impossible, but a sun can be farmed to extend the life of a civilization for billions of years, but, that is the end because leaving can't be done....

a reply to: slip2break

Planets with rings. Multiple Saturns.

Oh how exciting. I don't tend to hold my breathe with these types of things however. It seems what we deem a "break through" is not the same as them. For most of us it's aliens or nothing lol. What amazing times that lay ahead for us. I just wish I could stay on this planet long enough to see the really really cool stuff.

I don't see the need for massive scale orbital energy platforms, for the reasons mentioned.

a reply to: slip2break

Not too sure how one jumps from unusual activity in space to technology that captures light from stars.

a reply to: slip2break

Dyson sphere in the process of being constructed, either way an interesting find, it could also be debris as the star passes through the remains of a nebula or even another star system captured by the star.
Be interesting to see what type of star it is and what life expectancy the particular star type has as well as it's relative age within the life cycle of it's classification, how old it is and what region of the galaxy relative to the extreme radiation of the galactic core it inhabits as each of these may be factors for both natural and artificial origins of such a find if it is verified.
If the evidence point's toward a civilization then the young universe theory and paucity of life as a consequence may be thrown out of the window as it would suggest either the universe is old enough to have allowed extreme ancient intelligent life to have appeared, life was created quicker after the big bang or simply we are far from the first generation of sentience to appear within this universe.

From briefly glimpsing through the paper I could highlight some important concepts for those who are interested: The dip in the star's brightness from data collected over 4 years is aperiodic (meaning that it is NOT cyclic), this rules out common solar system bodies like planets. Secondly, like most stars in the universe, this star is part of a binary system with a smaller M-dwarf star. My original hypothesis was that there was a third star in this system (as part of a tertiary star system with KIC 8462852 and the M-dwarf star) and upon undergoing a supernova, it was likely now a dwarf star, neutron star, or black hole. As such, it could be hard to detect this third star and yet, it would impede the light from the star reaching us or result in a gravitational lensing effect. However, from the limited amount of astronomy I know, even if my idea were to be possible, I believe the light dips would be periodic under such a scenario. Although, assuming the supernova occurred relatively recently, one could assume that the dust cloud and the temporary instability of orbits caused by such a supernova may result in irregular periods of light dips. Putting all of that aside, based on gravitational/mass ratio calculations, the paper's authors have concluded that there isn't a third massive body present in the system and that it is a binary star system after all.

Now looking at this from another perspective: It is widely understood and documented by ufologists that UFOs have been observed to have an affinity for our own sun, perhaps that's a clue that advanced civilizations harness and utilize the output of stars for their benefit. Moreover, according to the currently accepted academic theory, nuclear fusion is the process responsible for the sun's radiation. Moreover, researchers have long sought after building a fusion reactor (when the nuclei of two atoms fuse to form a larger atom, it loses some mass in the form of energy via Einstein's famous equation), perhaps advanced intelligences have learned to utilize such techniques for daily life and space travel. Interestingly, fusion reactions are also a key feature of plasma physics, a fundamental aspect of the Electric Universe Theory. There are countless possibilities and theories out there, some with sufficient merit to further explore, learn and harness for the betterment of humankind.

I love the work the SETI guys are doing, and have a computer dedicated to running SETI at home for them. That been said they do have a tendency to get hyperactive at the slightest hint of a discovery, of any kind.

Holding my breath that this might be something big, but probably not what everyone is hoping for.

originally posted by: 3n19m470
Taking energy from the sun seems to us an obvious way to produce great amounts of energy, and perhaps that is the path this hypothetical civilization took. But I would not say it is a given for any advanced civ. Some may discover other forms of energy, and energy extraction/harvest. Forms that do not require such gigantic structures, perhaps.

I agree totally, one thing that bugs me about the Michio fellow is his advert on discovery, I will paraphrase...

For alien life to visit us they must be hundreds of thousands of years more advanced than us

Well I think its a certain there are Alien races out there, possibly some hundreds of thousands of years older than us, but what I dont agree with is the underlying assumption that the passage of time means advanced and space travel means advanced. That is based on our own genetics.

Who is to say that on a planet similar to ours but say in lower gravity, what emerged from that sea wasnt a brain that needed to hunt and make shelter because it was like a plant and got its minerals from its star...so instead of worrying about tools and war and stuff, it just wanted to spread to other planets so it just focused on interstellar travel...

We could make more than all the energy we need if we could make Nuclear safe, what if they thrived of Radioactivity, then the output and dumping of nuclear fuel would be clean to them...even beneficial, the by product of nuclear fuel is hot radioactive baths to kill all your parasites.....Then they are likely to have metals and fuels unknown to our geology yet, a completely different kind of power we haven't yet discovered or even known about..

In relation to the OP - in my opinion, it is highly unlikely that the first Aliens we will know of are like us in any way, needing to harvest energy from a star is a human thing, we humans are unable to live in balance with nature, too clever for our own good yet not clever enough to realise we are killing ourselves.

Perhaps the first race we discover will have realised that raping the planet you live on to breed and to be greedy through war and power was a lose lose status and they focused all their energy on going to another planet...then they see us.

We are a disgusting animal and I am ashamed.