"Hunting for Alien Megastructures"

Originally posted by TrueBrit
But all they do is look in the radio range, basing thier entire search on a methodology which would be next to useless for interstellar communication, and certainly provides no real time value.

Guess what would be picked up first by someone looking toward us RADIO we sent radio signals long before tv pictures and long before we put anything in space so I would say you are wrong.

After all radio signals travel at the speed of light!

Unless it's within our solar system, we wouldn't be able to see it. Even in our solar system we'd have to have a pass by, or satellite orbiting the planet.

Outside of our solar system, we can simply see the effects of a structures gravity on the star it orbits. The f'er would have to be earth size, even than there would be no way for us to know it wasn't natural. At least not yet, or likely any time soon.

reply to post by wmd_2008


Yes, radio waves travel fast. But signal dispersion is the problem. It is completely ineffective as a deep space communication source

reply to post by Chargeit


Dyson Spheres would be much larger than Earth. The idea is to encapsulate the star to capture its heat as it dies.
This would be a type 1 civilization.

However, the entire endeavor seems impractical. At least to me.

If anybody wants to see an alien mega structure look no further than the Moon. There are a few theories out there that suggest our Moon is hollow and also older than the Earth.



Don't know how much stock I would put in these theories, just saying maybe we should look closer to home.

en.wikipedia.org...

www.bibliotecapleyades.net...

reply to post by wmd_2008


If an alien species WHERE in the galaxy was looking at us? Its sort of important to know.

zidbits.com...

Its important to know, because the current distance our signals have traveled is, on a galactic scale, bloody minescule. Regard the small blue dot, in the inset on this image.

Originally posted by justwokeup

Originally posted by JayinAR
That is very interesting stuff, but it begs a question.

If a species is capable of building Dyson Spheres, wouldn't all the resources wasted in building them be better spent just finding another planet to inhabit?

The Dyson Sphere idea is based on a perceived need for energy, not on space for habitation.

It may be that any society technologically advanced enough to undertake such a thing would have no practical need to do it (energy needs having been satisfied by other means). It may become redundant before it becomes practical.

Thats the trouble with technology prediction. We can extrapolate from what we do know, but we don't know what we don't know.

They could always start with a Dyson ring, and if they had any money left over, finish it off with a couple of caps on each end. It wouldn't be that difficult to start ... once a civilisation knew how to build self-replicating machinery such as a asteroid-mining factory, it could launch a few out to an asteroid belt, have them self-reproduce and send the processed cargo back to the target orbit for the Dyson ring.

But a Dyson ring provides a thousand times more space than the equivalent planet. The only downside is that once your star becomes a red-giant, that's your investment toast.

Originally posted by andy06shake
If anybody wants to see an alien mega structure look no further than the Moon. There are a few theories out there that suggest our Moon is hollow and also older than the Earth.

Don't know how much stock I would put in these theories, just saying maybe we should look closer to home.

en.wikipedia.org...

www.bibliotecapleyades.net...

edit on 27-5-2013 by andy06shake because: (no reason given)

You can look at a place called Derinkuyu underground city in Turkey. They were basically building the equivalent of multi-level nuclear bunkers with airlocks in 800BC.

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by stormcell

They could always start with a Dyson ring, and if they had any money left over, finish it off with a couple of caps on each end. It wouldn't be that difficult to start ... once a civilisation knew how to build self-replicating machinery such as a asteroid-mining factory, it could launch a few out to an asteroid belt, have them self-reproduce and send the processed cargo back to the target orbit for the Dyson ring.

But a Dyson ring provides a thousand times more space than the equivalent planet. The only downside is that once your star becomes a red-giant, that's your investment toast.

Underlined above really you think that why don't you calculate the volume of material in a ring or sphere like that pick a diameter and if made of steel would be about 7.5 tons per cubic mtr.

Have a go at working that out and see how easy it would be

Originally posted by JayinAR
reply to post by wmd_2008

 

Yes, radio waves travel fast. But signal dispersion is the problem. It is completely ineffective as a deep space communication source

Yes I know that but even we can pick up signals at very low powers levels

The sensitivity of our deep-space tracking antennas located around the world is truly amazing. The antennas must capture Voyager information from a signal so weak that the power striking the antenna is only 10 exponent -16 watts (1 part in 10 quadrillion). A modern-day electronic digital watch operates at a power level 20 billion times greater than this feeble level.

Directed signals can be picked up over vast distances UNLIKE a radio signal broadcast in all directions.

reply to post by wmd_2008


The problem you reach there is scale.
We beam "directed" signals at stars.

I recently finished the first "new" book - Bowl of Heaven
by
Gregory Benford,
Larry Niven

Its about one of those Mega structures. Pretty cool read.

In this first collaboration by science fiction masters Larry Niven (Ringworld) and Gregory Benford (Timescape), the limits of wonder are redrawn once again as a human expedition to another star system is jeopardized by an encounter with an astonishingly immense artifact in interstellar space: a bowl-shaped structure half-englobing a star, with a habitable area equivalent to many millions of Earths…and it’s on a direct path heading for the same system as the human ship.

Am i just getting old or did everyone forget that there are huge anomalies on our moon....
There is a seven mile high tower they call the shard sticking up from its surface
There are the mega things on Mars near the face....
What about those huge ships mining the rins of Saturn that Bob Dean shows?

Originally posted by stirling
Am i just getting old or did everyone forget that there are huge anomalies on our moon....
There is a seven mile high tower they call the shard sticking up from its surface
There are the mega things on Mars near the face....
What about those huge ships mining the rins of Saturn that Bob Dean shows?

You believe that that's all BS

Originally posted by JayinAR
reply to post by wmd_2008

 

The problem you reach there is scale.
We beam "directed" signals at stars.

I do KNOW that, I have had an interest in astronomy etc for many years having watch Apollo 11 as a young boy.

My post re radio was in answer to TrueBrit's assumption that SETI is wrong listening for radio evidence well since we developed radio FIRST that's why I said he was wrong as it's the the thing we have sent furthest into the void anything else will have similar problems with scale distance time etc.

So what if Mog from ZOG was out for a joyride some distance from his home world they may pick up a signal and also the other way.

So please stop trying to be smart I am well aware of what's involved with this subject!!!

reply to post by wmd_2008


"My post re radio was in answer to TrueBrit's assumption that SETI is wrong listening for radio evidence well since we developed radio FIRST that's why I said he was wrong as it's the the thing we have sent furthest into the void anything else will have similar problems with scale distance time etc."

Maybe other civilisations that came before us also utilised radio waves and sent them into the void with the hope of detection. Just pointing out that our recorded history pales in comparison when compared to how long Man has been around on this world. Maybe our radio waves/signals have propagated further than we know.

reply to post by TrueBrit


The problems with finding ET communications signals is a complex one.

SETI has assumed that ET, assuming they desire to advertise their presence or like Humanity on Earth, have been careless about their radio emissions and allow them to radiate into space for anyone who might be listening to pick up, will be broadcasting using radio.

This is a ridiculous assumption.

We assume ET is technologicaly advanced, so my guess would be that they would no longer be using something as primitive as radio, and would more than likely be using a communications system based in Quantum science.

Probably far ahead of our own currently early poking and prodding into the area of the Quantum sciences.

Perhaps ET's signals are....all around us, everywhere we look in space. The problem is, if they are using a form of Quantum entanglement having got around the decoherence problems we're currently scratching our heads about, the moment we try to 'read' or otherwise detect one of their Quantum signals...it degrades into random noise due to decoherence.

Maybe the random static or noise we see and hear on an untuned TV or radio set...is actually the remains of ET's Quantum communications, broken down into nothing coherent becuase we observed it or tried to record/listen to it.

As we make progress in the Quantum field...we'll probably discover the chatter surrounding our local area of the Galaxy is everywhere.

reply to post by RUFFREADY


Thanks for the heads up on a new Niven read.
I am a big fan of his wonderfully creative mind.

reply to post by azureskys


Your welcome. This newest one (and I dig all of his stuff also) is full of everything we like in science fiction (plus this mega structure which is just crazy big ) really weird Aliens, a space drive that's possible, a crew that's cool (I don't want to spoil anything...)

Its just a really good story and the first in a series of books.

Took me a minute to find this thread again, whew!

Got to thinking earlier this evening after I had read through this thread earlier today. Mainly the posts about mega structures like Dyson Spheres.

Let's suspend the debate on practicality for now, and assume instead that they might be out there.

How would one detect these?

First, we'd have to look here in our galaxy because we don't have the resolution to see individual stars in other galaxies unless they go nova.

So how do we see something that has completely enveloped another star?

I would suggest Heat. It would show up as a heat source just like a brown dwarf, only cooler. But at the same time, it would not be emitting any other type of radio emissions that stars and even brown dwarfs emit. Most likely all we would see is a point that is a heat source.

Not definative, I know. However, it would be highly suggestive.

There were two other things I thought of: The building of one, and the destruction of one.

Considering the amount of stars in our galaxy alone, and if there were a reason that is practical for them to be built, we just might be seeing them being built.
They would need to be built around a stable star (one that is not emitting dangerous amounts of different kinds of EM). All we would have to look for is: loss of magnitude in the star's brightness!

Variable stars have their brightness change, but a stable star that is having a Dyson Sphere built around it would be a star who is getting dimmer as more and more of the sphere gets completed.
Better yet: how about stars that have been observed and recorded......but are not not found anymore? Is it because a sphere if finished?

Again, not final proof of anything......but it could get one to wonder about it!

Now for the other idea: destruction.

I do not know if having the tech to build a sphere would mean you'd have the tech to control a star. I would think if you had enough power to control a star, then you wouldn't need to build a sphere, as you'd have enough power to travel among the stars.
Thinking that.....at some point the star will expand into a red giant as it ages (as our star will 5 billion years from now). There is no way a sphere would be able to contain that. It would burn it away or rupture it.
If it does, then that means there will suddenly be a red giant where there was no red giant before, and it wouldn't be a gradual thing. It would look like a red giant star suddenly blinked on!

Again....not final proof......but could be suggestive.

If I wanted to find Dyson Spheres, those are the things I would look for.