Extent of Human Radio Broadcasts in Universe - Pic.

Thought this was a good pic putting into perspective the extent of human radio broadcasts sent out into the universe by us over the last hundred years - it's been stated that the size of the bubble is 200 light years across but it does look rather humbling when compared to the incredible vastness of our home galaxy (nevermind the countless billions of other galaxies).

Image (Scroll Right) :

Extent of Human Radio Broadcasts / The Tiny Humanity Bubble by Adam Grossman
Mankind has been broadcasting radio waves into deep space for about a hundred years now — since the days of Marconi.

That, of course, means there is an ever-expanding bubble announcing Humanity’s presence to anyone listening in the Milky Way. This bubble is astronomically large (literally), and currently spans approximately 200 light years across. But how big is this, really, compared to the size of the Galaxy in which we live (which is, itself, just one of countless billions of galaxies in the observable universe)?

To answer that question, Adam put together the following diagram of our galaxy with the “Humanity Bubble”

link

Oh man and I thought humanity was the center of the universe...........

Great pic, hopefully it will be awhile before we make our presence known to The Triffids, The Blob or worse those annoying (but still hilarious) Invaders From Mars

This is of course unknown. For all we know those transmissions entered a worm hole and came out across the universe.

Happened in Star Gate!

The first signals that aliens are likely to receive from us will be our first experiments in radio. A sobering thought- we'll be greeting them with all the old corny jokes from our early radio shows.

You never get a second chance to make a good first impression, Good night, Irene !

Originally posted by Mamatus
Oh man and I thought humanity was the center of the universe...........

It is! If you take off in a rocket ship it'll take you the same amount of time to reach the edge of the universe no matter which direction you go. To me, that says we're at the center.

As for attracting the evil aliens, you can count on the signal smearing and deteriorating and being buried in background noise long before it gets to them. So...

Thanks Karl I've often ponderd on the thought of, has our signal reached an advanced civilisation and what are the implications of them knowing, we also exist..fascinating.. Do the signals deteriorate with distance or time, I wonder!!
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Originally posted by ararisq
This is of course unknown. For all we know those transmissions entered a worm hole and came out across the universe.

Always a possibility. Space is full of all kinds of holes. Not only that, our radio could be broadcasting into any number of unseen non-spatial dimensions that blast it loud and clear and undecayed instantaneously across the entire universe. Hard to tell.

Originally posted by ararisq
This is of course unknown. For all we know those transmissions entered a worm hole and came out across the universe.

Happened in Star Gate!

Exactly...I was going to post the same thing.

To answer that question, Adam put together the following diagram of our galaxy with the “Humanity Bubble”

Maybe I'm naive, but how DOES one do that? Aren't our oldest satellites just reaching the edge of our solar system? Or is there a big mirror out there?

Originally posted by seaside sky
The first signals that aliens are likely to receive from us will be our first experiments in radio. A sobering thought- we'll be greeting them with all the old corny jokes from our early radio shows.

You never get a second chance to make a good first impression, Good night, Irene !

Whats worse is it will be followed up with Hitler and his radio addresses.

As a side note looking at the op pic I realized Star Trek has brainwashed me lol... The first thought I had was Earth is not located in the Beta quardrant.

Originally posted by Blue Shift
Always a possibility. Space is full of all kinds of holes. Not only that, our radio could be broadcasting into any number of unseen non-spatial dimensions that blast it loud and clear and undecayed instantaneously across the entire universe. Hard to tell.

I just had a thought as to the reason for the pending alien invasion... We have been blasting their dimension full of Lady Gaga for years and now they are blasting ours with the sky noise, failing that - they'll come in force to put an end to her. I say we give her up without a fight.

Originally posted by Planet teleX

To answer that question, Adam put together the following diagram of our galaxy with the “Humanity Bubble”

Maybe I'm naive, but how DOES one do that? Aren't our oldest satellites just reaching the edge of our solar system? Or is there a big mirror out there?

If you mean how do we know what our galaxy looks like and how we know our approximate position?, there are a multitude of methods which add up to provide us with our current picture of the Milky Way:

"Finding one's location in a cloud of a hundred billion stars--when one can't travel beyond one's own planet--is like trying to map out the shape of a forest while tied to one of the trees. One gets a rough idea of the shape of the Milky Way galaxy by just looking around--a ragged, hazy band of light circles the sky. It is about 15 degrees wide, and stars are concentrated fairly evenly along the strip. That observation indicates that our Milky Way Galaxy is a flattened disk of stars, with us located somewhere near the plane of the disk. Were it not a flattened disk, it would look different. For instance, if it were a sphere of stars, we would see its glow all over the sky, not just in a narrow band. And if we were above or below the disk plane by a substantial amount, we would not see it split the sky in half--the glow of the Milky Way would be brighter on one side of the sky than on the other. Text

Continued here...

Reminds me immediately of the Total Perspective Vortex in The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Wiki

When you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little mark, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says, "You are here."

In Adams's words, the Total Perspective Vortex illustrated that "In an infinite universe, the one thing sentient life cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion."

I tend to agree with his conclusion.

reply to post by Blue Shift

It is! If you take off in a rocket ship it'll take you the same amount of time to reach the edge of the universe no matter which direction you go. To me, that says we're at the center.

That is completely false and I have no idea where you pulled that nonsense from. Science isn't even certain there is an end to the Universe, we can't see far enough, and since the Universe is expanding at the speed of light we never will see the end. Furthermore, the most currently accepted theory concerning the shape of the Universe is the infinite flat model, which would predict there is no end.

reply to post by Blue Shift


Well, the universe is expanding..so wherever you happen to be located in the universe will seem like the center to you as everything is expanding out from everything else :-) You can only see as far away as light has managed to travel in time from your location!

i've always thought this was an interesting subject

somewhere someone or something may be picking up shows like the munsters or alf and wondering "wtf"?





maybe the original war of the worlds broadcast is just showing up somewhere out there

reply to post by karl 12

That, of course, means there is an ever-expanding bubble announcing Humanity’s presence to anyone listening in the Milky Way. This bubble is astronomically large (literally), and currently spans approximately 200 light years across.

I have a problem with this.
Marconi was still experimenting in 1897. Which is 115 years ago. So how do they come up with 200 light years? That's a big difference.

Secondly radio transmissions diminish very rapidly. Those first signals are down in the noise and not detectable.

Originally posted by samkent
reply to post by karl 12

 

That, of course, means there is an ever-expanding bubble announcing Humanity’s presence to anyone listening in the Milky Way. This bubble is astronomically large (literally), and currently spans approximately 200 light years across.

I have a problem with this.
Marconi was still experimenting in 1897. Which is 115 years ago. So how do they come up with 200 light years? That's a big difference.

Secondly radio transmissions diminish very rapidly. Those first signals are down in the noise and not detectable.

Very good observation.


But I think the key word here is "approximately" 200 years.
I know 85 years difference is a very rough approximation.
But still... star for you.

Originally posted by SolidGoal

Originally posted by samkent
reply to post by karl 12

 

That, of course, means there is an ever-expanding bubble announcing Humanity’s presence to anyone listening in the Milky Way. This bubble is astronomically large (literally), and currently spans approximately 200 light years across.

I have a problem with this.
Marconi was still experimenting in 1897. Which is 115 years ago. So how do they come up with 200 light years? That's a big difference.

Secondly radio transmissions diminish very rapidly. Those first signals are down in the noise and not detectable.

Very good observation.

But I think the key word here is "approximately" 200 years.
I know 85 years difference is a very rough approximation.
But still... star for you.

the transmissions are omnidirectional, creating a bubble 200Ly in diameter, the approx 100 year timescale (100Ly) refers to the radius of said bubble.

I have a question...how does it reach 200 light years, when the radio broadcast are only around 100 years old? I understand that it's omnidirectional, but what we're talking about is radio broadcast, not light. Are the radio broadcasts traveling faster than the speed of light? That just doesn't make sense to me.

Anyone care to explain?