Mysterious radio waves emitted from nearby galaxy

For those of you who want to "hear" the radio waves (presumably as you would hear from the radio), it's completely arbitrary as to how you demodulate the signal.

...For the laymen...

You can pick whichever channel you want to listen to it on, and it's going to sound different on each channel. So whichever channel you pick, you're deciding what it sounds like.

There's no inherent sound to radio waves. We encode sound signals (auditory range has a bandwidth of about 20kHz) in radio waves by modulating them (modulation = frequency shift, whether in music or electronics) and then transmitting them. When we demodulate (shift back, think of it as selecting a channel) and change from an EM wave to a pressure wave, we can hear it. Even if you were to get a sound file of the signal, its sound is wholly dependent on how it's been demodulated. Rather than a sound file, I'd rather have the raw signal in some .dat or something. I'd have loads of fun with that one...

Originally posted by Crossfate

Kinda like it was thinking "Hmmm this explosion is bound to grab someone or some things attention so the perfect time to broadcast to peak attention is during or right after this explosion"

I would just love to find out in a few days that some super geek decodes this signal into some kind of message from a intelligent source!

(keeps dreaming)

Actually I was thinking more along the lines of:

"Oh crap. Our sun is exploding, let's GTFO (4x speed of light) and broadcast our signal like crazy so someone can help us."

reply to post by Dynamitrios


Looks like Yog-Sothoth has broken through the gate!

But seriously that is wickedly weird, perhaps a stupid question but does anyone know if the signal have any mass? If it is moving at such a great speed I guess it wouldn't have much mass at all, correct?

Very interesting find to say the least. That said, I fear there is an issue people over look when they discover these sorts of things. Einstein also proved that light "bends" around mass seemingly because it moves through a "bent" space-time fabric.

The experiment that "proved" this did so during a solar eclipse in that it was observed that a star in our galaxy was in a position it could not have been because we've known about the star in question for centuries. Its course was documented by many and everyone knew exactly where it really was (obstructed by sun) while it was observed to be in a place of visibility.

How thats relevant to this and other things of this nature is simple, we only found out about potentially bent space because we were dealing with an object we were familiar with. Once we leave our galaxy and things become many several light years away, there isn't any familiarity to work with anymore. Not only are we dealing with an object/event from a time period that pre-dates us, we may not even be observing its proper tradjectory.

lol, I guess its true
ET does phone home
hahahaha

what a great discovery
can somebody say:

Nobel Prize

Originally posted by harrytuttle
reply to post by daniel_g

 

Speed is relative. There is no such thing as an absolute reference frame. For example, how fast are you moving right now?

• 0 mph?
  
• 50 mph?
  
• 800 mph?
  
• 65,000 mph?
  
• 485,000 mph?
  
• 14,000,000 mph?
  

Let us know what your answer is, Mr. Smarty Pants, then we'll see who the genius is.

I was wrong, raise the fool count to 91%

Do yourself a favor, and read the stupid article, wait no, I'm sure that if you haven't done so already, you never will, or if you did, then you didn't understand it, so I'll make it easy for you and quote the important parts:

its apparent sideways velocity is four times the speed of light.

See the word 'apparent'? It's apparent because

the effects of relativity produce a kind of optical illusion that makes the motion appear superluminal

So I'm confused, where in the hell did I say that speed is not relative or that there is an absolute frame? Where does the article say the waves are moving 4x the speed of light relative to our frame? Nowhere. What we detect is the equivalent of an optical illusion but outside the visible light spectrum.

lol buzzkill 2010 is back

so why is it they would say it's apparently travelling at four times the speed of light, yet they know themselves that's impossible but they felt like saying anyway : /? why would they be so specific as to say, it looks as if it's travelling at four times the speed of light ?

Can't help myself quoting a certain crappy pop song popular right now:

You would not believe your eyes
If ten million fireflies
Lit up the world as I fell asleep

'Cause they'd fill the open air
And leave teardrops everywhere
You'd think me rude
But I would just stand and stare

I'd like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly
It's hard to say that I'd rather stay
Awake when I'm asleep
'Cause everything is never as it seems

'Cause I'd get a thousand hugs
From ten thousand lightning bugs
As they tried to teach me how to dance

reply to post by Tryptych

/cry....I really like that song too lol. I was at lunch today with a bunch of my co-workers and it came on at the Round table pizza, and I got slammed for liking it too.

Maybe it does suck.

Aaaannnywayz. Awesome find OP, will be waiting to hear more about this S & F

Originally posted by Haydn_17
As always im sitting here praying it may be some type of ET probe which sends out signals.

Ahh i can dream!

If its 12 million light years away, we are talking about something happening 12 million years ago, right?
An interesting thought would be if something travelled faster than light towards earth, how would it look like? Would we see it several places in time?

reply to post by TheElectricAnt


We wouldn't see it at all. It would smack us and we wouldn't even see it coming, hehe.

Seriously, if something's going faster than light, then the light won't hit you by the time the object does.

These are the things I live to hear about! An unknown object in nearby galaxy M82 has started sending out radio waves, and the emission does not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before.

It certainly does not fit the pattern of radio emissions from supernovae: they usually get brighter over a few weeks and then fade away over months, with the spectrum of the radiation changing all the while. The new source has hardly changed in brightness over the course of a year, and its spectrum is steady.

I'm astonished by the discovery! Mind blown! I could care less what the average person, that lives life to ridicule others, has to say about this. However, there is the upsetting side to this. Discrediting, ridicule and immediate Dismissal. It totally ruins those working hard, day and night, searching for contact like those at S.E.T.I.
"We don't know what it is," says co-discoverer Tom Muxlow of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics near Macclesfield, UK. Of course, we don't know what it is, but that doesn't mean that we can't go and try to match radio waves emitted from things like, black holes and other cosmic phenomenon. Although, if the mysterious radio waves emitted from the nearby galaxy cancle out all other radio waves of cosmic phenomenon, then we have something unique.

It's a shame though that our intelligence and space agencies would dismiss it as an Unknown, even worse, not making an effort to make an investigation available to the public.

I must comment on another issue. One discovers Mysterious radio waves emitted from a nearby galaxy. Oh. So it must be humanity that is doing that. Really? Is one that serious? Really? Comon. Really? Does one think now that we are responsible for mysterious radio waves from another galaxy? First its, Human Military responsible for all UFO sightings in our atmosphere, around our solar system, and deep space? Is everything just spacejunk, comets, stars, or planets to some people? Really? All I can say to that is, when one finally opens his/her eyes, I hope the sun doesn't blind him/her. There are many different primal or intelligent/advanced extra terrestrial races, micro sized, smaller than we are, taller than us, or at giagantic heights, spread throughout our home galaxy, throughout the universe and throughout other universes. This is something one doesn't need to go to court over to prove. Its sad. It really is.

I hope they actually run a serious investigation into this instead of their bogus lies of "we dont investigate" and then behind our backs, investigate it.

Ok this makes no sense to me, if it's a radio wave they discovered it one year ago and it been constant for one year, so what big deal. It could be caused by some phenomenon in space thats natural to galaxy formation/destruction change in mater. It could be that the universe farted in our general direction. If it's on a level bordering humanity, then this signal is not coming from 12 million light-years away, it came from there it's alwredy here the time scales are relative to its understanding it appears to be going faster then light because you measure data speed, by physical known speed. Data is everywere speed light radiowaves and time is a form of interpretation, the known limits of human perception. Now if they think it's important point the better data receivers at its source then try to decode it's memetic evolution interpret its data. If it's within human bounds you could decode it into understanding. If its not it's just god/universe farting within your relative general percieved direction=Static

Originally posted by galadofwarthethird
It could be that the universe farted in our general direction.

But aside from that, I have my fingers crossed for intelligence, or at least something unknown.

reply to post by daniel_g


Good point - perhaps now you can try it again without being obnoxious. Maybe people will pay attention to you then.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Hm...."Dear God, Our Whole Home EXPLODED! Someone Save Us!!!!!"

Okay, I admit to a very active imagination.

reply to post by OrphenFire


Apparently I'm not the only one thinking that!

[edit on 2010/4/14 by Aeons]

Here is the scoop. This is completely not possible according to the standard model of physics. In fact they are doing some things right now with Quantum Physics that go against some of Einsteins theories. I think what people need to realize is that when it comes to earth Einstein could be very well correct, but as soon as we leave the Earths atmosphere then Einsteins theories are no longer correct. Einstein himself said all it takes is one experiment to prove him wrong.

What I think this is some sort of intelligent life sending out a distress signal, in fact as it has already been mentioned this could actually be our origins catching up with us. Doesn't really matter though, this will be one of those things that will never see the light of day.

oooooooooooo!!!!!! is about all I can manage to say.

An unknown object in the nearby galaxy M82 has started sending out radio waves, and the emission does not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before.

That's arguably the best sentence I've ever read. Regardless of what it is, it's something bizarre and new. Bloody brilliant.

reply to post by daniel_g


I think someone needs a nice cup of tea and some reading glasses.

If you re-read the article you'll see that it states the 'apparent' speed is FTL, then goes on to discuss possible explanations. I think the point you've missed is that none of them explain the 'apparent' FTL movement, which is why it's bloody amazing and everyone's confused. The guys that found it are doing 'best guesses' to explain it.

And to cap it off....you're using an out of context quote as 'evidence' that we're all fools....

You said...

"the effects of relativity produce a kind of optical illusion that makes the motion appear superluminal."

The article says...

"Such apparent "superluminal" motion has been seen before in high-speed jets of material squirted out by some black holes. The stuff in these jets is moving towards us at a slight angle and travelling at a fair fraction of the speed of light, and the effects of relativity produce a kind of optical illusion that makes the motion appear superluminal."

They then go on to say that's it's not likely to be a black hole, so the relativistic effects seen before likely don't apply to this new observation.

Shall we raise the idiot count to 92%? Obviously I wouldn't be that obnoxious, tho maybe it'd be nice to be on your own list?

edited to make my point better.

[edit on 14-4-2010 by eightfold]

Originally posted by SLAYER69

Originally posted by ROBL240
If I remember right only a year ago a Amateur Astronomer was making the same claims, that he found a "intelligent signal of unknown origin" only for the story to be completely forgotten about some weeks later.

Its just a shame we on Earth (that I know of) cant send a signal back, and even if we did it'd be 12 million years until this object/thing would recieve it. Even if we found out it was just a Pulsar by then.

OK Carl Sagan had an argument against sending messages out into the unknown. We have ZERO idea of what types of civilizations are out there nor their motives. That could potentially be like the Aztecs sending Spain an invitation for a nice friendly visit.

David Brin also regularly writes about what a bad idea sending out data is.

I happen to agree.

Could be that we hear from some fantastic group of beings.

Could be that we are dropping blood in the water for the sharks.

I suspect sharks are more likely than ....well I was going to say bunnies but then remember bunnies eat their young. I'm trying to come up with some lifeform I know of that doesn't do things that are uniquely terrorizing ...... nothing pops to mind. That's probably a good warning in and of itself.

[edit on 2010/4/14 by Aeons]