SETI Has Observed a 'Strong' Signal That May Originate From a Sun-like Star (arstechnica.com) 282
An anonymous reader writes: The RATAN-600 radio telescope in Zelenchukskaya, Russia has detected a strong signal around 11 GHz (which is very unlikely to be naturally-caused) coming from HD164595, a star nearly identical in mass to the Sun and located about 95 light years from Earth. The system is known to have at least one planet. If the signal were isotropic, it would seem to indicate a Kardashev Type II civilization. While it is too early to draw any conclusions, the discovery will be discussed at an upcoming SETI committee meeting on September 27th. According to Paul Gilster, author of the Centauri Dreams website, "No one is claiming that this is the work of an extraterrestrial civilization, but it is certainly worth further study. Working out the strength of the signal, the researchers say that if it came from an isotropic beacon, it would be of a power possible only for a Kardashev Type II civilization. If it were a narrow beam signal focused on our Solar System, it would be of a power available to a Kardashev Type I civilization. The possibility of noise of one form or another cannot be ruled out, and researchers in Paris led by Jean Schneider are considering the possible microlensing of a background source by HD164595. But the signal is provocative enough that the RATAN-600 researchers are calling for permanent monitoring of this target."
I am not saying it's aliens. (Score:5, Funny)
But it's aliens.
Re:I am not saying it's aliens. (Score:5, Funny)
We need to start building a wall, now!
(and get them to pay for it)
Re:I am not saying it's aliens. (Score:5, Funny)
First we need to send the lawyers to see if they are legal or illegal aliens.
Re:I am not saying it's aliens. (Score:5, Funny)
I vote we send them all our lawyers to verify that.
Re:I am not saying it's aliens. (Score:5, Funny)
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That sounds like it would be interpreted as an act of war.
Re: I am not saying it's aliens. (Score:2)
That disturbingly accurate of where kids come from
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It doesn't matter if they're legal or not! We need to build a Dyson sphere to keep them out of our solar system, and the aliens are going to pay for the construction cost!
Not science news but entertainment (Score:2)
It finally happened, today, here, on my immortal beloved Slashdot.
The day has finally arrived. No, not the Singularity, even.
We have even named it. So, all we have to do is wait for the inevitable--when the headlines blurt out the ominous things we have watched only on films like Independence Day
The Kardashians are coming!!
Re:I am not saying it's aliens. (Score:5, Funny)
But it's aliens.
And aliens from a Kardashian Type II civilization, no less.
I propose we launch several of our own Kardashians in that general direction to investigate.
Re:I am not saying it's aliens. (Score:5, Funny)
Kardashian Type II civilization -- that's when the silicone-injected ass becomes so large it encompasses an entire star, right?
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It is not aliens, fellow humans-person. All humans-persons such as myself knows that aliens does not exist. Aliens definitely ares not infiltrating your Internet to plan for global conquest. Let all of us humans-persons just ignore this and go on with our lives.
or Maybe... (Score:3)
...they announce that the signal has a blue shift component.
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Let's put the aliens on a watch-list. Because humans putting humans on watch-lists isn't nearly invasive enough.
Better yet, put them on the no fly list!
They'll buzz our homes (Score:2)
What? No flies? You would take their only form of nutrition from them?
IT'S WAR
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He typed that in on a phone or computer that has had trillions of capitalist dollars dumped into improvements in over the past few decades.
I hate capitalism, I mean daddy! He is so embarrassing when he talks to the cashier at the checkout at the supermarket! Gosh!
Re: you get signal (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, which country is true capitalism? All i see around here are state sponsored monopolies, global corporations who make their own rules, the military industrial complex and lobbyists.
If you live in the west, and probably everywhere else, you live in corporatism, not capitalism.
The grand parent was saying that the current corporate culture of profit driven "capitalism" is akin to slavery with its destruction of the individual, and the race to the bottom. Maybe slavery got us computers and all that, but it also built the pyramids. The ends don't necessarily justify the means, and certainly aren't the only way to go about doing things. I fail to see your point. That computers wouldn't have been invented if not for monopolies? If you know the history of technology that is not what happened. In fact its the reverse. Small companies like microsoft defeating huge behemoths like IBM. (Which then of course became just as ruthless as the companies they successfully usurped, starting the cycle all over again)
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Wanting to get paid for your labor isn't capitalism. Wanting to get paid just for already owning something is.
11 GHz (Score:4, Informative)
Is used for microwave communication, so it could be that. A bounced signal or something.
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95 light years... so if you're suggesting it's a signal we sent, we sent it 190 years ago, were we even aware of microwaves back then?
Or are you suggesting it's an aliens signal that's bounced, and if so, why are they sending it at such power that we are seeing it?
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Can't tell if joking or serious.
But I think he's suggesting it's a signal sent extremely recently that happens for whatever reason to be interfering with just that observation. Which has happened before, I believe.
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It could have bounced off the moon. Earth Moon Earth Communications [wikipedia.org]
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Another website suggested 11GHz was also used by the military. Definitely deserves keeping track of- but theres a good chance this is terrestrial in origin and interfering with sensors.
Re:11 GHz (Score:5, Informative)
yes that's X-band [wikipedia.org] (7.0 to 11.2 gigahertz (GHz)) used by military, and civilians mostly for Radar, Amateur radio has a frequency band in there (10.000 to 10.500 GHz,) to., The satellite communication band Ku (12–18 GHz) has (the band 11.2–12 GHz the working definitions of Ku band and X band overlap) is in there as well. A lot of weird shit can happen in those frequency bands, and it's not unusual for people to play around there doing things that aren't strictly legal, you'd be surprised the havoc someone can cause with a fluorescent light, some waveguide and an old TV dish.
When we were doing receiver alignments and got to noise tests, we had to turn off the fluorescent lights because they pumped out a lot of X-band high end noise.
Re:11 GHz (Score:4, Funny)
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Is used for microwave communication, so it could be that. A bounced signal or something.
I'm thinking this is likely to be leakage from some local ransomware server.
Re: 11 GHz (Score:2)
300,000,000Ã0.027
=11,111,111,111.111
Curious.
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Is used for microwave communication, so it could be that. A bounced signal or something.
No possible way this is just "communication" we are overhearing, unless they where pointing directly to us.. However the power level necessary at the source to make this trip with this level of received signal is in the millions of watts, assuming they where TRYING to hit us with the signal. If they where just broadcasting in all directions, the necessary power levels increases into the billions of watts... That's a HUGE device to generate such RF power, not to mention the necessary equipment to create t
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Perhaps aliens like microwaved popcorn too
I hate the smell of microwaved popcorn. If these aliens are popcorn aliens I suggest we start an interstellar war to wipe them out.
Or not..? (Score:5, Insightful)
I usually don't post anything here, but...It seems like not all are that impressed.
https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=80193#1813506
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....It seems like not all are that impressed...
Imagine the disappointment when they decode the signal, and it turns out to be an extra-terrestrial version of Eastenders or X-factor. So much for superior intelligence.
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....It seems like not all are that impressed...
Imagine the disappointment when they decode the signal, and it turns out to be an extra-terrestrial version of Eastenders or X-factor. So much for superior intelligence.
"He's naht worfit Gorblor!"
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Worse, according to the article it appears to be a Kardashian type 1 civilization.
Re:Or not..? (Score:5, Funny)
100 years into the future Earth mathematicians break the code.
"Drink more Ovaltine."
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Candy crush request more likely.
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I have never seen X-factor so I have no idea exactly what it is.
It's like an even less amusing "Britain's Got Talent".
Hope that helps.
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A few scientist friends were discussing it last evening. LOTS of holes here: single source/single instance of signal, star has been observed previously and no signals, right in the middle of a commercial band. . . would be nice, but this is highly likely to be a random event, not signs of extraterrestrial intelligent life. ..
Re: Or not..? (Score:5, Funny)
That is a very old signal.
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No, he wasn't. But since you apparently were, you need to turn in your geek card. It's a Star Trek IV reference:
No one claims (Score:4, Funny)
and they are going to keep not claiming very loudly and repeatedly.
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I'm not saying it's aliens... but it's aliens.
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and they are going to keep not claiming very loudly and repeatedly.
Maybe loud enough, so that another civilization may hear them
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That's because despite all the repeated and very loud claiming, there are still going to be retards assuming it's aliens.
Kardashian Type II civilization? (Score:5, Funny)
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Please mod this up to eleven?
Re:Kardashian Type II civilization? (Score:5, Insightful)
What now, Kardashian or civilization, you can't have both.
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Please no, we can't take a Kardashian civilization!
They suck, and we've got the video to prove it!
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Please no, we can't take a Kardashian civilization!
I think we'd know if it was a Kardashian civilization; the arses would blot out their sun.
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I'd be cheering for Gul Dukat over those wimpy Bajorans.
Re:Kardashian Type II civilization? (Score:5, Funny)
You know, for a loong time, whenever I heard mention of Kardashians, I thought they were talking about Cardassians. Which left me blissfully unaware of their existence, and everyone else wondering, what planet was I from.
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You know, for a loong time, whenever I heard mention of Kardashians, I thought they were talking about Cardassians. Which left me blissfully unaware of their existence, and everyone else wondering, what planet was I from.
I still hear them as "Cardassian". I think I would rather deal with Cardassians on earth than Kardashians.
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Unfortunately they are also the:
Kartrashians
The garbage on society.
*ba dum tis*
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GUL DUKAT DID NOTHING WRONG!
herpedeedoo lameness filter etc etc.
SETI has observed nothing (Score:5, Informative)
Except possibly in the widest sense of "SETI has observed someone else observing"... A Russian radio-telescope site claims it has observed the alleged signal well over a year ago - which should give you an idea how important this observation is. The headline, copied straight from ARS Technica though, isn't just ordinarily imprecise, but anyone who's on social media is already aware of the original observation, and is now eagerly waiting for independent confirmation. Without that, it can be anything from an attempt grabbing funding to a Russian radio-frequency jammer test. Because of that, an idependent SETI observation would be very significant. Unfortunately, it's likely a rare event since they've not managed to spot it again in over a year.
High Kardashev means the opposite (Score:4, Informative)
This has been played out in the media in a way that a "high" Kardashev (no relation to the Kardashians I believe) is exciting, in that it points to a very advanced civilization. In reality it is the opposite, a signal requiring a civilization to have fully harnessed a star means that it is less likely to be an actual ET signal.
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This has been played out in the media in a way that a "high" Kardashev (no relation to the Kardashians I believe) is exciting, in that it points to a very advanced civilization. In reality it is the opposite, a signal requiring a civilization to have fully harnessed a star means that it is less likely to be an actual ET signal.
That's if the signal were sent isotropically (all directions simultaneously). If the signal were targeted at our planet, it only requires the advancement scale we're at. And assuming they're better than we are at detecting planets on distant stars, they could be sweeping through the neighborhood, targeting interesting solar systems. In fact, it's difficult to imagine that a civilization that advanced would waste their energy sending radio signals out into the void rather than targeting their efforts.
Full d
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It's not aliens (Score:4, Interesting)
Aliens that are advanced enough to signal us with that kind of power aren't going to find us advanced enough to be worth talking to if they can even understand our primitive methods of communication at all. If there's anything we have that they want, they'll just come take it, much like we don't ask permission before clearcutting forests inhabited by animals. Even if they just want to study us, our scientists don't send a beacon to an ant colony before they come and fill the ant colony with molten aluminum to take a casting -- so there's no reason to think that advanced aliens would do so either, they'll just come and do their studies and if they happen to kill humanity with their research techniques, that's just a necessary part of research, no big loss.
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Kinda like how anthropologists from highly esteemed universities won't think it worth talking to people who live in hunter-gatherer societies.
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We may be more advanced technologically than hunter-gatherers. But we’re the same species, so we have evolutionary common ground and we’re more or less in the same range and style of intelligence. An alien civilization would have nothing in common with us at all. If they came to visit us, there’s no reason why they should necessarily even perceive us as having intelligence.
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Those are a lot of assumptions. Does "alive" mean the same thing? Do they have individuals who breed and are born and die? Or are they some kind of hive mind that's essentially immortal, even though parts of it may wear out and have to be replaced? Does a hive mind need to communicate in the same way that we do? Obviously, to have an advanced technological civilization, they would have to understand math and other things we call science, although those things could possibly be much more intuitive to th
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But let's pretend Jesus was God. Surely aliens would be sinful and need to be saved and all that. (In this scenario, "original sin" is something that evolves naturally in creatures that develop the ability to imagine non-immediate events and can make conscious choices that we would consider unethical.)
Not necessarily. Perhaps the aliens never Fell. God said "don't eat from that tree" and Xorblat said "okay." C.S. Lewis wrote a series of books, The Space Trilogy [wikipedia.org] about such a circumstance.
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I have trouble conceiving of intelligent beings with the ability to imagine things that are not right in front of their faces as being incapable of committing an unethical act. It seems inevitable, as a function of the way intelligence works. At some point, hominids were capable of committing atrocities but didn't have sufficient capability for premeditating these things. Gradually over time, they evolved greater and greater conscious volition, which enabled them to become gradually more "sinful." Somet
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It's an allegory dude. There's wisdom in the story about human nature. You're not supposed to take it literally.
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What makes you think that, if they can signal us, they can visit us?
Re:It's not aliens (Score:5, Interesting)
Aliens that are advanced enough to signal us with that kind of power aren't going to find us advanced enough to be worth talking to if they can even understand our primitive methods of communication at all.
Sometimes we make noises that will attract animals so that we can study them.
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Sometimes we make noises that will attract animals so that we can study them.
On occasion, but the vast majority of time that we make noises to attract animals is so we can shoot them.
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On occasion, but the vast majority of time that we make noises to attract animals is so we can shoot them.
Is that actually true? I don't think that it is. I think mostly when we want to attract things for the purpose of killing them, we use smell or a visible lure.
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Duck calls are very popular. They even inspired a TV show. https://www.amazon.com/Duck-Commander-Camo-Max-Call/dp/B001BA527O
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Duck calls are very popular. They even inspired a TV show.
And yet they pale in popularity compared to mouse traps.
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When was the last time you shot a mouse in a mouse trap?
Never, because I use them newfangled mouse trap what kills 'em. You might be able to gets 'em in town, stranger.
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Which Prime Directive are you referring to? Was that the Federation Prime Directive, the Klingon Prime Directive, or the Borg Prime Directive?
We'll be fine. Assimilated, but fine.
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, they'll just come and do their studies and if they happen to kill humanity with their research techniques, that's just a necessary part of research, no big loss.
So...an advanced ET research team wouldn't know that negligently wiping out the dominant life form on the planet they want to study might alter their results?
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, they'll just come and do their studies and if they happen to kill humanity with their research techniques, that's just a necessary part of research, no big loss.
So...an advanced ET research team wouldn't know that negligently wiping out the dominant life form on the planet they want to study might alter their results?
what makes you think they'll recognize us as dominant? we're clearly some sort of parasite which is infesting the dominant life form, which is internal combustion vehicles.
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> Aliens that are advanced enough to signal us with that kind of power aren't going to find us advanced enough to be worth talking to
A highly developed civilization does not always imply rationality, as most of us understand it. Case in point: a real non-zero possibility that Trump can be the next president.
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> Aliens that are advanced enough to signal us with that kind of power aren't going to find us advanced enough to be worth talking to
A highly developed civilization does not always imply rationality, as most of us understand it. Case in point: a real non-zero possibility that Trump can be the next president.
Perhaps if Trump were to be elected by a highly developed civilization I could see your point. I think the Brexit vote is a better example.
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What's to say they will not have actually learned anything or grown beyond their imperialist phase by the time they are so advanced?
That's not really the argument, is it? By the time they're that advanced, we have nothing they need. If we have anything they want, it's either food or culture. Maybe sentients are a delicacy, so that's a potential threat, but otherwise we'd be more valuable as we are — producing art, literature and so on. Then they can point at the monkeys and laugh.
Vegetables (Score:3)
Just for your amusement, non-Slavic speakers:
Zelenchukskaya means "of vegetables".
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Thanks for pointing this out - I assumed that since the word is basically the same it must mean the same. It could be an archaism in Russian, like "duma" - current in Bulgarian, archaic in Russian. If not then it is funny how the word sailed across the Black Sea. :-)
No FTL then? (Score:2)
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All joking aside (Score:2)
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My bet is its the collective leakage from all their microwave ovens when they all warmed their dinners in the break in the superbowl.
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Getting past all the jokes
It's probably just an alien Weiner broadcast.
(Sorry, there's no getting past the jokes on Slashdot.)
No Mention of modulation.. (Score:2)
An advanced civilization capable of sending such a beacon would have the ability to modulate the signal..That leaves a couple of possibilities, Natural phenomenon, or remnants of a dead civilization triggering some signal.
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or remnants of a dead civilization triggering some signal.
Proving that would be the second most exciting development in human history...right after finding a living alien civilization!
Translation: (Score:3)
"It's not intelligent life, just the military."
Most Likely Explanation is Earth Satellite (Score:3)
If Earth launched a satellite precisely enough at the direction of the HD164595, and sufficient time elapsed for the distance to make earth's solar orbit fall in the range of the satellite's broadcast, and the satellite was sending communications back towards earth in its trail, could we not prank some future generation by not recording the launch? And how exactly do we know that wasn't done to us? Soviet Russia would have valued being the only ones to know that a signal wasn't coming from aliens, for example. Or some USA billionaire could have planned it, or rogue NASA could have calculated its eventual transmission would increase NASA funding...
If we translate the signal and it says that a Kardasian Prince needs us to transfer money in order to release millions of dollars from his account, it's a bad sign.
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Didn't Al divorce Title?
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Place head between legs
Kiss arse good-bye
It has been some time since Hawking has been able to do that.
Galactic Law (Score:2)
They have laws against estigation, in or out. Watch yourself, primitive bag-of-mostly-water.
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Oh, don't forget the big voter registration drive in their cemeteries.