Sending out visible signals

[MadScientist]

I just had a crazy idea that makes perfect sense to me.

I was watching the new'ish TV series called Lost, a few episodes ago they used rockets to signal to between 3 groups of people each a distance away.

 

If our Milky Way galaxy is fairly flat, then if we sent a huge rocket like an incredibly powerful nuclear bomb. Instead of sending the rocket towards the closest star send it vertically out of our galaxy. Then any alien civilisations looking to the stars would see it more visibly.

 

Even if the thickness of the galaxy between our system and the top/bottom edge would take 50,000 years sending it out perpendicular (I think that's the right word ) to our system would make it more visible to other sytems.

As they looked at our sun they'd see a huge burst of energy many miles above it.

 

Any comments??

 

The only problem I can see is what type of signalling device to send. I think a nuclear explosion would be too quick, they'd have to be looking towards our system at the right moment. So it'd need to hang about for a while. Maybe a series of nuclear explosions, maybe we could put all those old warheads to good use.

[YT2095]

or a Warp signiture )

[Dov]

Pasting here info from another posting at SCF:

 

- Milky Way Galaxy is approximately 100,000 light-years across and 7,000

light-years thick.

- Milky Way Galaxy contains between 100 and 400 billion stars.

 

And we may wonder how many millions of all kinds of flares are occuring at any one minute within the galaxy.

 

And would'nt mankind be wiser and doubtlessly more efficient to expend effort on improving life on Earth and developing more knowledge rather than expend resources on senseless/plain stupid alien civilization lotteries ?

[Gilded]

From this comes to mind: How old is the Milky Way? I mean, regionally, so that it could've been possible that for example 5 billion years ago, some planet developed to the stage where Earth was 3 billion years ago, giving possible lifeforms on that planet a longer period to evolve than here on Earth. If that would be the case, then it's rather odd that we haven't seen a similar signal as MadScientist suggested, or received a radio-signal from another species.

[MadScientist]

And we may wonder how many millions of all kinds of flares are occuring at any one minute within the galaxy.

 

Not with distinctly recognisable patterns though.

 

And would'nt mankind be wiser and doubtlessly more efficient to expend effort on improving life on Earth and developing more knowledge rather than expend resources on senseless/plain stupid alien civilization lotteries ?

 

If they stopped spending billions researching new ways for us to kill each other we could easily afford to send a few signalling devices into space.

 

And you're right, after thinking about it I don't see what any alien civilisation that had developed worm hole, close to light speed or any other kind of superfast transport or even self sustainiing "generation ships" could teach us.

[YT2095]

why not dispatch a series of transponders, solar or nuclear powered. to strategic points to emit inteligent code on the 21 cm hydrogen band, on a narrow beam?

 

if I were ET, that`s exactly where and what I`de look for

 

 

I think I`de totaly overlook a nuke explosion as just part of background noise!

[Tesseract]

Why dont we just make a huge metal curtain and eclipse the sun several times, and spell hello in morse code.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Would they know morse code?

[Tesseract]

No.How about the first 100 prime numbers.

[Gilded]

"if I were ET, that`s exactly where and what I`de look for :)"

 

The Brittish aren't extra-terrestrial?!

 

And yeah, highly advanced aliens could teach us a whole lot of stuff. Efficient fusion reactors, more complete understanding to the universe and quantum mechanics... the list goes on. It's a bugger though if they don't like humans and eliminate us.

[Tesseract]

"if I were ET' date=' that`s exactly where and what I`de look for :)"

 

The Brittish aren't extra-terrestrial?!

 

And yeah, highly advanced aliens could teach us a whole lot of stuff. Efficient fusion reactors, more complete understanding to the universe and quantum mechanics... the list goes on. It's a bugger though if they don't like humans and eliminate us. [/quote']

Or maybe were unlucky and we only find get the attention of a society of pre-industrial apemen.

[YT2095]

morse code is out the question, it`s an arbitrary code unique to US only.

 

100 primaries??? naah, the 1`st 10 only and in Binary would sufficient

[Tesseract]

morse code is out the question' date=' it`s an arbitrary code unique to US only.

 

100 primaries??? naah, the 1`st 10 only and in Binary would sufficient [/quote']

The morse code thing was a joke. Might as well make it the first ten primes repeating every ten hours forever.

[swansont]

From this comes to mind: How old is the Milky Way? I mean, regionally, so that it could've been possible that for example 5 billion years ago, some planet developed to the stage where Earth was 3 billion years ago, giving possible lifeforms on that planet a longer period to evolve than here on Earth. If that would be the case, then it's rather odd that we haven't seen a similar signal as MadScientist suggested, or received a radio-signal from another species.

 

We have to be looking at the appropriate time, and they have to be sending. If intelligent life arose somewhere that was then sending signals 10 million years ago, we wouldn't see them - we weren't looking then.

[MadScientist]

We have to be looking at the appropriate time, and they have to be sending. If intelligent life arose somewhere that was then sending signals 10 million years ago, we wouldn't see them - we weren't looking then.

 

When I think about things like this I like to think what we'd do if we were the aliens exploring the galaxy.

 

One thing we could do with any newly formed solar systems or systems with simple life forming we find is leave messages in bottles, scatter a few beacons about with collision avoidance routines so they stand a better chance of surviving.

I suppose at that level of technology we could leave the beacons waiting for radio signals of a certain type which home in on the source and drop off the message.

[Janus]

I just had a crazy idea that makes perfect sense to me.

I was watching the new'ish TV series called Lost' date=' a few episodes ago they used rockets to signal to between 3 groups of people each a distance away.

 

If our Milky Way galaxy is fairly flat, then if we sent a huge rocket like an incredibly powerful nuclear bomb. Instead of sending the rocket towards the closest star send it vertically out of our galaxy. Then any alien civilisations looking to the stars would see it more visibly.

 

Even if the thickness of the galaxy between our system and the top/bottom edge would take 50,000 years sending it out perpendicular (I think that's the right word ) to our system would make it more visible to other sytems.

As they looked at our sun they'd see a huge burst of energy many miles above it.

 

Any comments??

 

The only problem I can see is what type of signalling device to send. I think a nuclear explosion would be too quick, they'd have to be looking towards our system at the right moment. So it'd need to hang about for a while. Maybe a series of nuclear explosions, maybe we could put all those old warheads to good use. [/quote']

 

 

The galaxy is about 300 parsecs thick where we are located. The "beacon" would have to be say 50 parsecs past the "edge" to be considered clear. So we would have to put the beacon about 200 parsecs galactic North or South of the Sun.

 

The largest nuclear device ever built had a yeild of 50Mt . This would produce about 1/2000000000 the amount of energy produced by the Sun in one sec. Assuming the amount of energy released as visible light was of equal proportion to that released by the Sun (in reality, our nuclear device would most likely produce a lower percentage of visible light, but let's go with this figure for now), This would produce a flash with an absolute magnitude of about 18. The brightest star visible by the Hubble telescope has magnitude of 26. This works out to the fact that our nuclear blast could be seen by a Hubble type of telescope at a max distance of a little over 300 parcecs, not very far as far as galactic distances go.

[[Tycho?]]

All the nukes in the world detonated at the same time would produce and insignifigant signal on astronomical scales. Plus it would probably look just like all the other stars around. You have to use a frequency or entirely different method where there is going to be less natural interference.

[Dov]

For so many thousands of years humans have been signalling to Gods for solving their multitudes of problems and pains and for bettering their lots, and now they add alien civilizations to their signalling targets.

 

Ask yourself what life you want/hope for, for yourself and for your family and for your group etc.,. How would a God or an alien civilization change/modify the existing earthly conditions that block your wishful targets as all the blocks are made and raised by us?

 

And do you think that your wishful human life targets might be reached ONLY when we humans have attained the ultimate extent of scientific knowledge and technological capabilities, maybe via an alien civilization lottery? Don't you agree that Eden could have been here and may be here if we humans do the job even without waiting for Gods or alien civilizations ? How would God or alien civilizations make Earthly humans more cooperative for the grand purpose than they are today? And do we realy need ever more science and technology and and and etc., for the wishful life target ?

[Tesseract]

yes

[Gilded]

"If intelligent life arose somewhere that was then sending signals 10 million years ago, we wouldn't see them - we weren't looking then."

 

Hey, good point. Continuous signals are of course always better than the non-continous ones, such as the nuke blasts.

 

"The largest nuclear device ever built had a yeild of 50Mt"

 

Not really, it's the largest one detonated. And now that it's not going to detonate anywhere near Earth, they should go with at least couple of gigatons. :>

[Sayonara]

Why not trigger a chain of super novas that etch out a big arrow, pointing to our star system.

 

That'd get their attention.

[Gilded]

Talking of triggering super novas, has there been even wild theories about how to trigger one? Or is it just one of those things that we won't do, no matter what? I can't see another way than suddenly increasing the star's mass dramatically causing it to collapse and then go nova, and that's not gonna happen.

[[Tycho?]]

Talking of triggering super novas, has there been even wild theories about how to trigger one? Or is it just one of those things that we won't do, no matter what? I can't see another way than suddenly increasing the star's mass dramatically causing it to collapse and then go nova, and that's not gonna happen.

 

Well since we (probably) mostly know how supernovae work, we would know how to trigger one.

 

This is one of the things that is inconcievably beyond our reach. You'd probably have to do something like throw in a big chunk of mass, which would take an insane amount of energy for us to do. This is in the same catagory as manipulating a black hole so you are able to fly through it and test some time travel theories...

[[Tycho?]]

Talking of triggering super novas, has there been even wild theories about how to trigger one? Or is it just one of those things that we won't do, no matter what? I can't see another way than suddenly increasing the star's mass dramatically causing it to collapse and then go nova, and that's not gonna happen.

 

Well since we (probably) mostly know how supernovae work, we would know how to trigger one.

 

This is one of the things that is inconcievably beyond our reach. You'd probably have to do something like throw in a big chunk of mass, which would take an insane amount of energy for us to do. This is in the same catagory as manipulating a black hole so you are able to fly through it and test some time travel theories...

[Geode]

Whether a star goes nova or supernova is a function of the star's mass, but that's only part of the picture. A star goes nova because it's fusing 'ash' (helium, et al) and is doing so largely as a consequence of gravitational collapse. The rate of collapse is determined by the star's mass, which is why larger stars go nova and smaller ones don't, typically.

 

I'm grossly simplifying, but those are the basics.

 

To induce a star to nova, therefore, one would have to either provoke collapse or provoke rate of fusing. Preferably one should be accomplished in some synchronicity with the other.

 

To do this efficiently, or at all, one would have to:

 

Be able to affect the gravitational constant

The same, for the strong nuclear force

Have proven the aforementioned to be consequences of a unified field theory and possess the engineering necessary to manipulate space-time according to said theory

 

A species that powerful would probably find it unnecessary to blow up stars, unless they were also a species of malfeasant teenagers.

 

 

Geode