Distant galaxy sends out 15 high-energy radio bursts

originally posted by: entermemo
a reply to: SolAquarius

Remember the movie Explorers?

en.wikipedia.org...(film)

www.youtube.com...

God that's a blast from the past.

Wow I haven't thought about that movie in years.

What about this scene from contact?

originally posted by: myselfaswell
a reply to: SolAquarius

Beat me to it, but here it is anyway;

Only because it is faster to link a video then upload a picture. I'm not a fan of the image upload it's a hassle.

originally posted by: makalit

originally posted by: SolAquarius
The signal has got to be more then 2 million years old. Since the nearest neighboring galaxy andromeda is 2 million light years away.

So if it's ET's they are either long dead or several million years more advanced then when they originally sent the signal.

made me think- if there was intelligent life scattered- we should be getting a lot more signals. even if they are 2 million light years away. but then you realize we've only been measuring and detecting said signals for 50 years. a mere millisecond

We can assume our planet happened during an epoch where galaxies are large enough to have safe zones in their spirals devoid of deadly galactic radiation with the right abundance of heavy elements during star formation for similar Sol and earths. Seeing as that was 5 to 6 billion years ago and we are only now sending and searching for signals, the universe is devoid of signals making it out of their galaxies from intelligent life. The progression from big bang to heavy elements dictates that we will never in our lifetimes get a signal from another galaxy, in our own galaxy maybe if it is really really close in the same spiral arm safe zone.

There are other factors, for instance if large extinction events never took place then mammals would have never become dominant when they did, the earth would have been roamed by giant pooping dinos till atmospheric conditions could no longer support them. With natural extinction rates taking it's toll, the era when humans developed would have passed, our ancestors never having a chance to stand upright and develop large brains.

Then there is the moon creation which slowed the earths rotation, the size, the age when it happened. The planet core staying active providing the magnetic field of protection, which btw may only have lasted this long due to merges with other planetary bodies and the impact which created the moon.

Too many factors all of which make this time and place unique just by looking at what we know from science. Any signals we send out now might be received a few billion years from now in a galaxy like ours just forming it's star. Since the Universe is only 13 billion years old, our galaxy and sun were among the first when the heavy elements from previous star deaths concentrated enough for a sun like ours to exist. Any other life out there existing when we do is unreachable by any signal either way, the dating of the big bang just won't allow it, unless we have a very close neighbor that rolled the same dice and got the same results on every roll that got us here.

My first thought reading the op ? - magnetars
Went to the article
Their first thought - magnetars
Makes sense
Keep on Searchin

a reply to: TinfoilTP

Does that theory exclude the possibility of an alien civilisation that was gifted with being waaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy smarter than we are.

A human example.

Aboriginal Australians have existed for somewhere around 60,000 years.

Europeans have existed for somewhere around 15,000 years.

There was a pretty big technology gap when Cook turned up on the shores of Australia. On a galactic timescale we're talking about a time difference that is irrelevant. What if it was a few billion years?

originally posted by: Gothmog
My first thought reading the op ? - magnetars
Went to the article
Their first thought - magnetars
Makes sense
Keep on Searchin

this isn't the first frequency bursts recorded. i need you guys one of you to find other frequency bursts. are they all orderly- or all random. is this the only severely orderly one recorded?

originally posted by: myselfaswell
a reply to: TinfoilTP

Does that theory exclude the possibility of an alien civilisation that was gifted with being waaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy smarter than we are.

A human example.

Aboriginal Australians have existed for somewhere around 60,000 years.

Europeans have existed for somewhere around 15,000 years.

There was a pretty big technology gap when Cook turned up on the shores of Australia. On a galactic timescale we're talking about a time difference that is irrelevant. What if it was a few billion years?

Unless the aliens and their worlds are made up of non heavy elements, then no they were not around long enough to send a signal to us from another galaxy, the distances are too great for the amount of time needed for a signal to get here.

100,000 years either way is nothing, we are talking scales of billions of years needed from big bang to our sun, then billions from that point to us sending and looking for signals.

aren't there lots of galaxies within 20 000 light years? so it only takes 20 000 years to get here.

a reply to: TinfoilTP

Unless the aliens and their worlds are made up of non heavy elements

So it's possible then, intergalactic communication can be done.

originally posted by: myselfaswell
a reply to: TinfoilTP

Unless the aliens and their worlds are made up of non heavy elements

So it's possible then, intergalactic communication can be done.

Only if you think impossible life forms are possible. You must show an example of an intelligent life form comprised solely of hydrogen and helium else it's science fiction.

originally posted by: makalit

originally posted by: Gothmog
My first thought reading the op ? - magnetars
Went to the article
Their first thought - magnetars
Makes sense
Keep on Searchin

this isn't the first frequency bursts recorded. i need you guys one of you to find other frequency bursts. are they all orderly- or all random. is this the only severely orderly one recorded?

From a magnetar ? Very random as they have very random spins . Kind of like if you "throw a dice". Yet orderly if and when they are picked up by instruments. They have to be in a precise position to "throw it our way"

a reply to: Gothmog

i dont get why recording them would make them more orderly? anyway you say they are all quite random.. this is the most orderly signal. it goes like this

1||||1||||1||||1|||1
50||100||150||200||250

@tinfoil "The Canis Major Dwarf

The Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy is only 25,000 light years from the Sun, and 42,000 light years from the Galactic center. It too, is well-hidden by the dust in the plane of the Milky Way - which is why it wasn't discovered until recently."

"he SagDEG [galaxy] is on the other side of the Milky Way from the Sun, about 70,000 light years away. "

We don't need a 3 billion year old intelligent species in order to send signals. They could have got the technology 50 000 years ago and started sending them out.

originally posted by: makalit
aren't there lots of galaxies within 20 000 light years? so it only takes 20 000 years to get here.

The Milky Way galaxy itself is 100,000 light years across.

originally posted by: makalit
aren't there lots of galaxies within 20 000 light years? so it only takes 20 000 years to get here.

Nope our galaxy is 100,000 light years in diameter itself and the next nearest galaxy is andromeda which is 2.537 million light years away and the distances only get bigger beyond that.

a reply to: TinfoilTP

true. those were satelite galaxies i was referencing. andromeda is 2 million light years away.
not a lot of time considering grays have been on earth 300 million years ago, so they were already advanced

Oh i think i get your point tinfoil i the article the star they recorded this burst from is 3 billion light years away. my bad.

a reply to: TinfoilTP

Why does it have to be chemically based ?

What about Dusty Plasma Life-Forms;

Organic life on Earth is based on carbon compound molecules, and we have already discussed several biological alternatives to carbon. But in 2007, an international team led by V.N. Tsytovich of the General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Science documented that in the correct conditions, particles of inorganic dust can become organized into helical structures, which can then interact with each other in a manner very similar to organic chemistry. This behavior occurs in a state of plasma, the fourth state of matter beyond solid, liquid, and gas, where electrons are torn from atoms, leaving behind a mass of charged particles.

Or perhaps maybe Chromodynamic, Weak Nuclear Force And Gravitational Life.

Here's a small selection of other possibilities.

originally posted by: makalit
a reply to: Gothmog

i dont get why recording them would make them more orderly? anyway you say they are all quite random.. this is the most orderly signal. it goes like this

1||||1||||1||||1|||1
50||100||150||200||250

@tinfoil "The Canis Major Dwarf

The Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy is only 25,000 light years from the Sun, and 42,000 light years from the Galactic center. It too, is well-hidden by the dust in the plane of the Milky Way - which is why it wasn't discovered until recently."

"he SagDEG [galaxy] is on the other side of the Milky Way from the Sun, about 70,000 light years away. "

We don't need a 3 billion year old intelligent species in order to send signals. They could have got the technology 50 000 years ago and started sending them out.

Again . the signals fit a magnetar.
If it was an alien civilization , do you not think it would last longer than 15 seconds ? Perhaps they have "limited funding" as our projects do. I would hate to think that though. That would mean they are a lot like us

originally posted by: myselfaswell

Here's a small selection of other possibilities.

Oh man thanks for that link it's mind blowing.

i'd like to say they "apparently" ( i doubt it) found 11 billion year old earth-like planets. our solar system being 4 billion.

this could add the chance of this far away signal being sentient.

So all magnetator signals are so orderly like this? I'll have to see.
You know, the chance of a signal reaching any point in space is incredibly low, maybe they just send out millions of bursts.

I doubt the age of the universe, because they don't take into account the accerlation speed of the big bang, they only measure the current distance of galaxies and base a speed. The speed they measure is much slower than the speed 2 billion years ago. So they can't re-trace that to the big bang explosion because it'd show up being much older from the slower constant rate of speed


"Light-curves-of-six-example-bursts-from-the-magnetar-SGR-J0501-4516-recorded"

Very orderly gothmag. Just like this one. Not

a reply to: makalit

perhaps it was a signal sent out to communicate to others in their own galaxy and after all these billions of years it has just happened to reach us in our own galaxy.

Regardless if the signal comes from an intelligence they are either long dead or so advanced they might as well be incomprehensible gods to us. Maybe if they are still around they regard that radio signal in much the same way as to how we regard the cave paintings of our ancestors.