Where is everyone? Where to look.

When I reading BBC's article about VY Canis Majoris being the largest start currently known, and, about to go supernova, I had an idea.

VY Canis Majoris is some 4,500 light-years from Earth and could explode as a supernova at any time. It is colossal. If it was sited at the centre of our Solar System, it would extend beyond the orbit of Saturn. The star, in the constellation Canis Major, is what astronomers call a red hypergiant - a highly evolved object that is exhausting its nuclear fuel.

If this is an important and exciting occurrence for us (for astronomers and astrophysicists anyway) to observe and learn from, perhaps it isn't too anthropocentric to imagine that it is for other technologically advanced civilizations throughout the galaxy as well.

What does that mean?

Well, it means that "somebody" else, or many others, are probably watching with just as much intent as we are. Perhaps by observing rare or unique events in our galaxy, we can catch a glimpse of someone else in the audience. After all, the cosmos in the immediate vicinity are essentially the same for everyone, so if something fascinating is occurring, it should draw the attention of the masses.

Now, I would think that mostly we would have observers at a distance, like ourselves, but we could also have some more capable species taking a much closer look; as in a ship. Would it be possible I wonder, to see some sort of observations or tests being carried out around such an event?

Taking a step back, maybe it would be more realistic to look for a message in a bottle. What if thinking along the same lines, knowing this event would attract attention, an alien species left a message for other observers to find when the light arrived at their location?

Of course there are other anomalies out there that may serve the same purpose like black holes, high spin pulsars or magnetars, anything that we would find intrinsically interesting and valuable to science. In my opinion it would make much more sense to look at these events for signals or signs of explorers than randomly scanning miscellaneous star systems because you know at least one (us) species finds these things attractive and I'm sure that if we could go there, we would.

What do you think?

Sounds interesting! S+F.

How about a link to the article?

Peace!

Originally posted by HERACAT
How about a link to the article?

Peace!

Here you go:
Herschel telescope 'fingerprints' colossal star
By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News


Thanks for sharing, ZombieOctopus

I would imagine that if events like this do have an audience, that these would be the places to either look for activity or leave a message. Although it would take 4500 years to get there, maybe it would be a good place to send our own signal for future explorers to discover.

It would be like standing outside with a giant sign at the scene of a car accident. You know the car accident is going to attract the attention of a lot of people, so logically if you were standing out there with a sign, more people would be likely to read it, versus standing in a vast empty field with a sign hoping that someone will fly over in a helicopter before you expire.

reply to post by ZombieOctopus

That's a cool idea. But...
The prudence of advertising our existence is debatable. Are we really sure we want to be jumping up and down saying, "Hey! Over here! Here we are!"

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by ZombieOctopus

 

That's a cool idea. But...
The prudence of advertising our existence is debatable. Are we really sure we want to be jumping up and down saying, "Hey! Over here! Here we are!"

I was thinking the same thing. There's really no telling what the intentions are of beings that stumble upon our shout-out. At our current level of technology, we'd be left completely defenseless against any intelligent civilization that has had thousands or millions of years to evolve past us.

reply to post by ZombieOctopus


Very interesting theory and is extremely plausible.. first we have the search for radiation spikes from black hole star ships and now this theory, i think the chances of finding a craft or even fleet of ships are increasing rapidly.

Most likely the governments know the truth but we the people don't, it's up to the Amateurs and the scientists and astronomers not under the influence of the liars to get the word out..

Would be funny if the Hubble looks to a certain point in space and spots something it zooms in and there in front of it is another Hubble like telescope looking back at it. Imagine the surprise on both worlds!

S&F

I'm hoping that we find a craft or get contact here on earth within the next 5-10 years. preferably sooner... whatever i have been feeling since mid 2008 is really going for it atm as if the time is coming for something major to happen...sooner the better!

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by ZombieOctopus

 

That's a cool idea. But...
The prudence of advertising our existence is debatable. Are we really sure we want to be jumping up and down saying, "Hey! Over here! Here we are!"

Yep,
We might get a message back saying "Are you an edible species?"

reply to post by IWantTheFacts


Its worth the risk

Not all beings are "bad" or "evil" it's a minority just like on earth i don't believe that any species is ALL "evil".

If the ones that observe us wanted to annhilate us they would of done it thousands of years ago when we had no hope. Unless of course the race or races in question are very clever and calculating by having us develop the world and create everything needed they save money and resources on colonisation.. or if they want to annihilate us they want to do it honorably in battle, face to face on even terms.

Lots of possibilities like with the Gold discs attached to the voyagaer probes that had lots of detailed info/history and DNA on us humans. It could get picked up soon.. as of right now they are just outside the solar system.

As i said the risk has to be taken..

reply to post by badgerprints


perhaps...

"At last! you figured out how to to contact us, after all the milennia of waiting for you to advance technologically the time has come for our meeting, we shall send coordinates for the landing zones and date of our arrival"

or maybe...

"Thanks for the strategic location...have a nice annihilation"

i prefer the former

Originally posted by Raider of Truth
Very interesting theory and is extremely plausible.. first we have the search for radiation spikes from black hole star ships and now this theory, i think the chances of finding a craft or even fleet of ships are increasing rapidly.

When I first read the article about the blackhole drive I thought the same thing but if I understand the blackhole drive, which I may not, I think the purpose of it is to contain the singularity and a closed loop system, recycling the exhaust back into the loop and utilizing the radiation for energy. I think that's how it works anyway, so I'm not sure there'd be anything to look for.

I think it might ultimately be easier to look for objects or regions in our galaxy that other civilizations may also find of interest. That way you aren't looking for the relatively small footprint of a single civilization but maybe a gathering point of many civilizations as they come to investigate and study.

Habitable worlds are probably very common in the galaxy, but ones that harbour intelligent life are probably very rare, so instead of looking through the millions upon millions of possible worlds, you've narrowed it down to a few places of common interest among intelligent species.

The places I'm suggesting are problematic (at the moment) because SETI is probably disregarding them from their list of possibilities as there isn't likely to be an alien home world there, but a temporary population. Objects like black holes, pulsars, obscure star types and stars bordering on super-nova would seemingly be the least likely of places to have a civilization so I doubt anyone has even thought to check for activity.