Aliens on the Radio?

[Cramulus]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18775-mysterious-radio-waves-emitted-from-nearby-galaxy.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news



Mysterious radio waves emitted from nearby galaxy
14 April 2010 by Stephen Battersby, Glasgow

There is something strange in the cosmic neighbourhood. 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.

"We don't know what it is," says co-discoverer Tom Muxlow of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics near Macclesfield, UK.

The thing appeared in May last year, while Muxlow and his colleagues were monitoring an unrelated stellar explosion in M82 using the MERLIN network of radio telescopes in the UK. A bright spot of radio emission emerged over only a few days, quite rapidly in astronomical terms. Since then it has done very little except baffle astrophysicists.

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.


Warp speed

Yet it does seem to be moving – and fast: its apparent sideways velocity is four times the speed of light. 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.

Could the object be a black hole? It is not quite in the middle of M82, where astronomers would expect to find the kind of supermassive central black hole that most other galaxies have. Which leaves the possibility that it could be a smaller-scale "microquasar".

A microquasar is formed after a very massive star explodes, leaving behind a black hole around 10 to 20 times the mass of the sun, which then starts feeding on gas from a surviving companion star. Microquasars do emit radio waves – but none seen in our galaxy is as bright as the new source in M82. Microquasars also produce plenty of X-rays, whereas no X-rays have been seen from the mystery object. "So that's not right either", Muxlow told New Scientist.

His best guess is still that the radio source is some kind of dense object accreting surrounding material, perhaps a large black hole or a black hole in an unusual environment. Perhaps the phenomenon also happens occasionally in our galaxy, but is more common in M82 because it is a "starburst" galaxy – a cosmic cauldron where massive stars are forming and exploding at a much higher rate than in the Milky Way, creating a lot of new black holes.

Muxlow will report the discovery at the Royal Astronomical Society National Astronomy Meeting in Glasgow, UK, today.

[Elder Iptuous]

Since the notion expressed in the title is certain to cross the minds of any readers of this article, i wish they would hit on it in the article, if only briefly.
what are the characteristics of this emission?  it says the spectrum is steady, but does it have variation that could imply information, or is it completely steady?

[Triple Zero]

There is something strange in the cosmic neighbourhood.

WHO YOU GONNA CALL??

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Well, many years ago we started sending out radio transmissions. It's a pretty obvious concept. My first thought would be whether we are returning other transmissions on the same wavelength, because if they came from another species that would be the logical response.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I suppose though that we can't physically do that, yet.

I am gonna come right out and say that I assume the existence of other life in the universe, mostly because I think that if something happens once it indicates that it is likely to happen.

[Doktor Howl]

Well, many years ago we started sending out radio transmissions. It's a pretty obvious concept. My first thought would be whether we are returning other transmissions on the same wavelength, because if they came from another species that would be the logical response.

None of our radio waves have left our galaxy.  The farthest any have gone is about 100 light years.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Well, many years ago we started sending out radio transmissions. It's a pretty obvious concept. My first thought would be whether we are returning other transmissions on the same wavelength, because if they came from another species that would be the logical response.

None of our radio waves have left our galaxy.  The farthest any have gone is about 100 light years.

Sure, for our retard monkey radio waves, but four times the speed of light seems like it could indicate way more advanced monkeys who had the same idea.

Don't get me wrong. As of right now, I still think alien assprobes are the work of future human time-traveling anthropologists.

[Doktor Howl]

Well, many years ago we started sending out radio transmissions. It's a pretty obvious concept. My first thought would be whether we are returning other transmissions on the same wavelength, because if they came from another species that would be the logical response.

None of our radio waves have left our galaxy.  The farthest any have gone is about 100 light years.

Sure, for our retard monkey radio waves, but four times the speed of light seems like it could indicate way more advanced monkeys who had the same idea.

Don't get me wrong. As of right now, I still think alien assprobes are the work of future human time-traveling anthropologists.

I think they're the product of contemporary bored CIA geeks.

[Richter]

TV re-runs from another intellignt species possibility = kind of cool.

The fact that at ever faster than speed of light they're likely dead and gone = exquisite cold loneliness.

[Triple Zero]

Another thing, but other more knowledgeable futurists on this board may be able to fill in more details, is that the large part of radio-emissions only happened in a short period of humanity's development.

As far as I know, we already send a lot less "naked" radio emissions into outer space than we used to. Partly because it's just wasted energy, partly because most information goes through transatlantic fiberoptic cables and such now, and a lot of the info is encrypted and/or compressed making it look a lot more like noise.

I read somewhere that it's expected we will stop emitting radio alltogether at some point, at least, unless we want to.



Since we're on the subject. Yes I do believe there must be alien life out there somewhere. But the distances are pretty fucking vast. I mean, if you seen any of those animations that "zoom out" of the universe, I get the idea that yeah certainly it's big enough for the same sort of thing as Earth to have happened somewhere else. Probably zillions of times, even. The problem though, is when astronomers look in our immediate vicinity, there are hardly any Earth candidates (ok we can't detect them very well either), but given that a lot of circumstances have to be just right, they are probably much farther away than 100 light years.
And since, as far as we know, communication/information transfer faster than light (not even talking about travel) is simply not possible, if it really isn't, then we might never even get to talk to them.
I mean, what if it was 100 light years, can you imagine a discussion with a 100 year latency?

Although naturally some pagan otherkin furtard will manage to astrally fall in love with one.

[Hoser McRhizzy]

Yet it does seem to be moving – and fast: its apparent sideways velocity is four times the speed of light.

(also, agreeing with Richter.  well said.)

ETA: I'm enjoying reading the conversation you six are having, and had nothing to add but the obligatory trek reference.  Hope the fly-by noob post doesn't stop a good discussion.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Another thing, but other more knowledgeable futurists on this board may be able to fill in more details, is that the large part of radio-emissions only happened in a short period of humanity's development.

As far as I know, we already send a lot less "naked" radio emissions into outer space than we used to. Partly because it's just wasted energy, partly because most information goes through transatlantic fiberoptic cables and such now, and a lot of the info is encrypted and/or compressed making it look a lot more like noise.

I read somewhere that it's expected we will stop emitting radio alltogether at some point, at least, unless we want to.

I don't know if I count as a 'knowledgeable futurist', but I'll put in my two cents here. Radio has only been around for a bit more than 100 years (not counting natural radio sources). A lot of it (AM band comes to mind, but it's a property of a whole range of frequencies -- which, if I understand correctly, are referred to as schuuman resonance frequencies) bounces off the ionosphere -- so it doesn't go into space at all. Of the stuff that goes into space, there used to be more leakage than there is now -- a lot of it was analog TV signals (VHF, UHF), while it is more common today to depend on cable TV and the broadcast TV bands are shrinking.

Some people have proposed as a solution to the fermi paradox that radio signals suck ass, and that only civilizations stuck at about our level use them. They suggest that sufficiently advanced aliens use something better (and then go onto tangents about plant telepathy, orgone, and morphogenic fields... and then someone locks them up). If there is something better for interstellar communications than electromagnetic radiation, it's almost certainly something we aren't looking at -- quantum tunneling or something, maybe.

[Cramulus]

anybody remember that movie Contact?

they found a signal in deep space which appeared to be an intelligent pattern. It was a long transmission which looped over and over again and nobody knows how long that's been going on.

As it turns out, this signal is instructions about how to build this machine which can teleport you to where the aliens are.


There are probably civilizations out there, and some of them are so advanced we can't comprehend what they're capable of. If they want to send a "WE ARE HERE" message out into the universe, they'd need to pick something incredibly visible and easy to find. I always used to wonder if those stars which are spinning so fast we can't even visualize it are really like morse code transmissions from deep space aliens. Making a star do crazy things would be a great way of getting somebody's attention over 1000 light years away.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

WOODY HARRELSON IS AN ALIEN?!

[Hoser McRhizzy]

WOODY HARRELSON IS AN ALIEN?!

yes.  as it turns out, white men really can't jump... unless they're ALIENS!   

I always used to wonder if those stars which are spinning so fast we can't even visualize it are really like morse code transmissions from deep space aliens.

I've decided to believe this at least until tomorrow.  It's a lovely thought.