"Hunting for Alien Megastructures"

Interesting article and discussion, not a new idea but well worth reviving
once and awhile.

Hunting for Alien Megastructures
by Markus Hammonds on May 24, 2013



www.universetoday.com...

It’s a big galaxy out there. Even the most skeptical scientist has to accept that if a civilisation like our own exists, then there’s a good chance we’re not the only one to have ever done so. When most people think about SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intellgence), they imagine someone like Ellie Arroway searching the skies for radio transmissions. But what about looking in other ways? Perhaps a highly advanced alien civilisation might build structures large enough for us to see.

Has the monolith on Phobos proven to be a rock yet?

Sooner or later they will find something out there, you know they will. Well, maybe not. The universe is so big that finding the needle in the hay stack doesn't even apply, it is more like finding the grain of sand on another planet.

I do hope they eventually find something though, cause just from understanding how big the universe is, there has to be others out there that built something so huge and monolithic that it cannot not be found, if you get my meaning.

Here is to hoping!

reply to post by BullwinkleKicksButt


Wow!


Now that was cool!

There was an interesting thread posted last year by Kandinsky that made the case for searching for Alien Dyson Spheres rather than just listening for their radio messages ...worth a look for anyone interested .
In Search of Dyson Spheres and Mortality

more

MARS/ARIES, rocks?

Also OP is there ANY (ACCURATE) shared data of exactly how many moons are in this SOL system and have been and which planets considering PLUTO and it now 5 new moons...

LOVE LIGHT ETERNIA*******

It's a good idea, certainly better than SETIs plan, although I'm sure there's a pretty fair chance that some alien lifeforms could be aquatic and therefore may not be spotted, could possibly even apply to this planet, how do we know that isn't the case here?

And once again, I throw Mars into the debate, I may not be able to prove it but I still maintain that there was civilization on Mars:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Fascinating read.
I wonder how long it will take until mankind is capable of building megastructures like that.
Impossible to say, sure, but still fun to think about.
If I had that Looking Glass...


reply to post by BullwinkleKicksButt

Hardly a megastructure

reply to post by Ophiuchus 13


Interesting pic....where was it taken? Link(s)?

That is very interesting stuff, but it begs a question.

If a species is capable of building Dyson Spheres, wouldn't all the resources wasted in building them be better spent just finding another planet to inhabit?

Originally posted by JayinAR
That is very interesting stuff, but it begs a question.

If a species is capable of building Dyson Spheres, wouldn't all the resources wasted in building them be better spent just finding another planet to inhabit?

The Dyson Sphere idea is based on a perceived need for energy, not on space for habitation.

It may be that any society technologically advanced enough to undertake such a thing would have no practical need to do it (energy needs having been satisfied by other means). It may become redundant before it becomes practical.

Thats the trouble with technology prediction. We can extrapolate from what we do know, but we don't know what we don't know.

reply to post by justwokeup


Yeah, I understand the article's premise. But what I am driving at is that the resources required to build such a sphere would be mind boggling. Not to mention the fact that they would have to be built by a species with a pretty sound mastery of space travel.

Ergo, wouldn't it be easier to just find a better star with a suitable planet and move there?

ETA: the more I think about it, the more impractical it seems. Would there even be enough resources in our entire solar system to encapsulate our sun? Doubtful. But kudos for the out of box thinking. What about artificial gravtation lenses?

It's possible we could be seeing signs of alien 'mega structures' already but have no idea how to interpret them so for now just see them as cosmic phenomena. E.g. short duration gamma ray bursts could speculatively be signs of intelligent species doing some galactic scale engineering out in the cosmos.

Or ultra high energy cosmic rays like the 'oh my god particle' observed in 1991 could speculatively be of extra terrestrial origin as well (realising both could eventually turn out to be natural explainable phenomena) but unless we keep up our own technological advances and keep advancing our ability to peer out into the universe and measure things in even more minute detail then we'll never know for sure.

I think we would be better looking a lot closer to home first



This video shows pictures from mikesingh who is a member here on ATS, although I'm unsure if he is still active. There are some interesting structures it would seem and it is our very own moon and well within our reach. Unless NASA know what is there already........

Originally posted by justwokeup

It may be that any society technologically advanced enough to undertake such a thing would have no practical need to do it (energy needs having been satisfied by other means). It may become redundant before it becomes practical.

Thinking further on this... there's nothing saying that it necessarily would have been conceived as a complete Dyson sphere from the outset. Even we are capable of creating a single satellite that would serve the purpose of the many nodes required for such a task. Consider what would happen if we created a single node, and realized it was a practical method for gathering solar energy for offworld application. Once we approach capacity of that one node, we could consider building a second. Once the availability of energy is understood and exploited by more people, more companies, more worlds, we'd need to grow our harvesting capabilities to keep pace.

The key with a lot of things like this (recognizing that there are no things specifically like this... but think smaller scale ideas that can be implemented piecemeal) is reaching the point where it seems reasonable to try it out... even in a limited run. I say we build the first one now. Fail early and fail often. I would suggest that any alien civilization that attempted to implement their first attempt at such a thing with an "all-or-nothing" approach likely would use up everything it has just trying to get the thing done. But I'd also suggest that if they were advanced enough to try it, they'd have been advanced enough to know that 100% completion is not always a good goal.

This video shows pictures from mikesingh who is a member here on ATS, although I'm unsure if he is still active. There are some interesting structures it would seem and it is our very own moon and well within our reach. Unless NASA know what is there already........

30 mins later and the video no longer existed
(did the video exist when you linked it just now?)

Originally posted by Mickles
I think we would be better looking a lot closer to home first

This video shows pictures from mikesingh who is a member here on ATS, although I'm unsure if he is still active. There are some interesting structures it would seem and it is our very own moon and well within our reach. Unless NASA know what is there already........

He is no longer with us mike made lots of claims and mistakes he was even confused by shadows on the Moon because he made the wrong assumption on the direction of sunlight on a picture.

Most of his stuff is the typical BS from poor quality over zoomed pictures.

Originally posted by Signals
reply to post by Ophiuchus 13

 

Interesting pic....where was it taken? Link(s)?

Its taken near the FACE of MARS/ARIES... near upper left corner of rectangle sits MARS/ARIES face... good question Signals first image is elder of the two posted thus far the second shows the marks erased or accidently smugged but that's another thread...

NAMASTE*******

I believe, that SETI do not make use of the full range of heaven scanning methods which might offer them insight into thier field of interest. But all they do is look in the radio range, basing thier entire search on a methodology which would be next to useless for interstellar communication, and certainly provides no real time value.

Let me put this another way... If you were serious about wanting to find out about what civilisations might be out there, would you search for evidence of a communication method which operates on a basis which makes it impossible to communicate instantly across vast distance, or would you look for other ways to do things? Would you actually come up with some alternative methods of communication, and look for those?

They arent . They should be.

reply to post by TrueBrit


That's a good point you bring up, and it is one often discussed.
However, if I am not mistaken, they HAVE started looking at light based communication possibilities.
If they haven't already, they are certainly discussing it.

PS: Happy Memorial Day everyone.