Mysterious radio waves emitted from nearby galaxy

Originally posted by ALOSTSOUL
Wow very intresting. They say the objects moving four times the speed of light..............I thought nothing could travel faster than the speed of light

How many light years away is galaxy M82?

And in which direction is the object moving?

Peace.

M82 is 12 million light years away. The Special Theory says nothing with mass can go faster than c. Light (and radio) is mediated by photons which are massless, which is why light can go the speed of ...drumroll...light.

reply to post by SLAYER69


"... however the object is said to be moving at 4 times the speed of light. The original location was 12 million light years away but the object is now moving faster than light. So how does that play into the time-line.?"

It might mean they were here yesterday.

Yeah, and it says, "Be sure to drinklyour Ovaltine".

Interesting stuff, here. Thanks for posting

Originally posted by ALOSTSOUL
Wow very intresting. They say the objects moving four times the speed of light..............I thought nothing could travel faster than the speed of light

How many light years away is galaxy M82?

And in which direction is the object moving?

Peace.

Things can TRAVEL faster than the speed of light. The only thing Einstein's theories of relativity prevent is the ACCELERATION of objects to faster than the speed of light.

There is the potential for an occurrence to cause the immediate speed or for objects that are already traveling FTL to exist.

Jaden

Seems like yet another discovery that proves that our brightest minds don't really know what they are talking about. The wisdom that Socrates showed by stating:
"True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
And in knowing that you know nothing, that makes you the smartest of all".

As to the whole theory that some intelligence is sending out a message, if that were true it would be a very old message. This is 12 million light years away. Even if we assume that this is travelling at 4 times the speed of light and also assume that it is headed directly towards us, the signal is still 3 million years old...or is my math off here?

1) Someone just made an argument that "to speed up mass to the speed of light requires an infinite amount of energy". That supports c being a limit of accelerating mass, not speed. If something is going at 4c, it doesn't take ANY energy to keep going at 4c, assuming it's traveling in a drag-less environment... but something going at 0.9c can't reach c because it would take infinite energy.

2) As for the timeline, assuming this object is actually superluminal (which is doubtful), 12 million years ago, an object was traveling faster than the speed of light. For all we know, it arrived at Earth nine million years ago then went on its merry way. Of course, the more likely scenario is that it fluttered out into space emitting radio waves all the while and eventually slowed down or went silent.

3) RADIO WAVES ARE LIGHT WAVES! We had this argument before.

EDIT: And the signal is 12 M years old. Light travels at c.

[edit on 14-4-2010 by pondrthis]

Well in any case.

It's constant and headed someplace fast. It'll be interesting to track and see it's final destination.

Originally posted by pondrthis

2) As for the timeline, assuming this object is actually superluminal (which is doubtful), 12 million years ago, an object was traveling faster than the speed of light. For all we know, it arrived at Earth nine million years ago then went on its merry way. Of course, the more likely scenario is that it fluttered out into space emitting radio waves all the while and eventually slowed down or went silent.

[edit on 14-4-2010 by pondrthis]

Wow. That statement right there. I think I understand what your'e saying and how that works - nevertheless my mind is now blown.

This is really interesting stuff, S&F.

I hope to see they find out what this is, and we get some more information on the possibilities. I'm hoping for intelligence life as well, but that is one long wave of hello

Good post...very interesting! S+F




Mod Note: One Line Post – Please Review This Link.

[edit on Wed Apr 14 2010 by Jbird]

Originally posted by wonderinghows
I thought I remembered that Hawking radiation could escape blackhole, if that is true then they go faster then the speed of light, right?

Nope.

Hawkins radiation is caused by a quantum effect that creates virtual particles.

Essentially virtual particles come in pairs a positive and a negative and normally annihilate each other as fast as they come into existence.

But...

At the event horizon of a black hole when these particles come into existence one of the pair is behind the event horizon but the other is on the right side of the horizon.. The effect is the particle is flung off.

That is a very simplistic explanation for a very complex piece of maths.

If you want to know more then you can refer here...

Hawking Radiation

Peace out,

Korg.

Originally posted by whatsup
I think that both the poster who said something can travel faster than light due to relative speeds, and the one who said that something can travel faster that light, but just not "accelerate" faster are both incorrect. In the first case, C is constant regardless of relative motion, and in the second case, C is the speed limit (not the accelaration limit). No?

[edit on 14-4-2010 by whatsup]

Pretty close.!! Relative speed has no effect. And while c is a speed ( whoal! actually velocity) limit, it results from the famous equation relating to acceleration, F=ma. Look at it this way, to get to c, something has to accelerate. The force needed to accelerate is directly proportional to the mass. As velocity increases, so does mass, so therefore, does the force needed to accelerate it. As you get closer to c, mass approaches infinity. There is not enough force in the universe to accelerate an infinite mass, so there you have it.

reply to post by MysterE


Assuming the signal is actually coming from M82, and not just somewhere in front of it (in relation to our view), then at four times the speed of light it has been travelling for 3 million years.

Even if it was an intelligent signal, there's little point in trying to answer as humanity and probably the signals originators would more than likely be long gone.

It would be great though, if it were a signal containing a long gone civilizations' galactic encyclopaedia, complete with their history and achievements.

I wanna hear it. Ahhhhh

Originally posted by pondrthis
1) Someone just made an argument that "to speed up mass to the speed of light requires an infinite amount of energy". That supports c being a limit of accelerating mass, not speed. If something is going at 4c, it doesn't take ANY energy to keep going at 4c, assuming it's traveling in a drag-less environment... but something going at 0.9c can't reach c because it would take infinite energy.

You are right!

However, how can anything that has mass be at 4 x c without first going through acceleration??

See my point?

All the best,

Korg.

Originally posted by whatsup
I think that both the poster who said something can travel faster than light due to relative speeds, and the one who said that something can travel faster that light, but just not "accelerate" faster are both incorrect. In the first case, C is constant regardless of relative motion, and in the second case, C is the speed limit (not the accelaration limit). No?

[edit on 14-4-2010 by whatsup]

No, C is the acceleration limit. The whole concept of not being able to accelerate to the speed of light is based on increasing mass.

As you approach the SOL, your relative mass increases, the closer you get to the SOL the closer your mass reaches infinite mass which means you can't possibly have enough energy available to continue to accelerate.

That is the way that the theory of no FTL travel works.

If you can create an inertia less environment the increase of mass wouldn't play as much a factor and you could accelerate past the speed of light and or you could harness particles that are already traveling at FTL.

Then there is the possibility of wormholes or rips in spacetime that could allow for the instantaneous speed increase of particles to FTL, and or jumps from one part of space to another.

The other person about the perception of FTL travel without actual FTL travel was also close to something...

There is the great possibility that as the universe expands time speed up.

The question would be is the universe infinite and new space is being created or is the universe's expansion actually just stretching space/time.

If it is the latter, then as the universe expands, time speeds up. The denser space is, the slower time would move. This is why gravity sources slow down time, it is the basic concept of time dilation.

This is evident by the apparent acceleration of the expansion of the universe without a potential driving mechanism for it. If it is that the rate of expansion is constant, but since time is faster, it appears to be accelerating when in actuality it is time that is accelerating and the rate of space expansion is the same.

The radio transmission could be close enough to the edge of the expanding universe that even though it is traveling at SOL or close there to, it appers to us to be traveling at four times the SOL because time is slower where we are due to the density of our surrounding space.

Jaden

reply to post by spikey


If the object was moving at four times the speed of light, perhaps this signal is also moving faster than the speed of light...? It could be almost real-time

[edit on 14-4-2010 by ShadowArcher]

That's cool and all, but it wouldn't be in english so there's almost no way to find out what it is.

Also I'm going to say this. Yea the laws of physics say it's impossible for mass to travel as fast or faster than light. Not only that but it's been shown and it held steady. But in this absolutly huge and magnificent universe you can't just stick to what we know as the all knowing truth. It's not fair considering this universe is just weird.

Like others have said, there are ways to sidestep laws of physics. And I imagine an advanced civilization has found ways to do that.

I also understood it like this. It sounded like the object was traveling 4x the speed of light while the signal was normal speed or who knows. We shouldn't be shooting down this kind of stuff just because one of our laws of physics says it's impossible. Things change and that means the understanding of the universe does too.

BTW whoever said radio waves are light waves. Technically they both are electromagnetic waves.

maybe when you zoom out far enough, waves move faster than rays.

maybe we have this whole movement/speed thing wrong?

this is cool, something that legitmitly shouts " STOP FOLLOWING THE OLD MODELS, THEY ARE NOT ACCURATE!"

this instantly proves to be a flaw in einstiens work, as nothings is just going to come into existance at 4 x lightspeed ! it had to accellerate at some point.

we have no idea what the object is yet, maybe its just a crazy ball of energy and particles which already went funny when it broke light speed!

whatever it is , its very very strange! would be nice to think its a beacon trying to tell us something about the universe!