[Closed] I'm not saying it's aliens, but....

We've finally caught sight of the galaxy quarantine sign for Earth, warning everyone to stay the hell away.

I think the last time something like this was announced, it turned out to be someone microwaving lunch in the break room.

It's musks ego it's finally got to big it's escaped our solar system

Yeah,I saw this on CNN op.

Part of me always hopes it turns out to be something truly amazing. There has to be life out there doesn't there but where are they??

As said, I suspect there will be a more mundane reason for it though.😒

Can we not point our new big fancy telescope at it? 😉

It's an infinite Universe. There could even be Space Dragons out there.

Apparently they suspect it's a 'Magnetar'.

Magnetars are bonkers. Imagine a neutron star, which is already terrifying, now give it a magnetic field that could rip the tits off of every atom in your body.

There could even be Space Dragons out there.

Or even soup dragons

Can we not point our new big fancy telescope at it? 😉

Breaking news: first images are in.

There has to be life out there doesn’t there

yeahbutno

I imagine so, given the vast possible permutations of likelihoods over time and space (and who knows really how ‘time’ works, letalone the possibilities of infinite ‘universes’?).

I know that I have a curiously (if predictably) biological and terrestrial view of things. So all I really ‘know’ is that I have no concept/example of anything truly ‘beginning’, ie everything comes from something, ie eternal transformation/energy exchange?

Very much like Jocelyn Bell and Anthony Hewish thinking this signal repeating every 1.3 seconds was little green men

Instead they discovered Pulsars and the boy got a Nobel prize

Breaking news: first images are in.

>>Updated<<

There has to be life out there doesn’t there but where are they??

Have a look at the Fermi paradox https://www.sciencealert.com/fermi-paradox

Statistically speaking it is as good as certain that 'other worldly' intelligent life has, does, or will exist.

The problem is the scales involved, in distance and time - if there is life that can travel across the galaxy, nevermind the universe, there's still an astronomical level of luck involved that any will ever meet each other, or even see any evidence of each other.

Aliens would be amazing - proving it will be um.... interesting....

We've been here before, several times in my lifetime and every time it's been of natural origin just something new.

There has to be life out there doesn’t there

And perhaps some of it isn't very friendly so any thinking civilisation decides the best thing is to stay dark and not risk getting clobbered by our lizard overlords. Not us though, we're doing everything we can to attract their attention... Or maybe they're already here?

Aliens would be amazing – proving it will be um…. interesting….

This probably isn't them though.

The Fermi paradox is really interesting though.

Space, [the Hitchhiker's Guide] says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. But its also really old, I mean really mind bogglingly hugely old. So an advanced civilization in our galaxy would have had time to makes its presence felt in a decent portion of the galaxy by now.

Pretty much every time we can get an accurate enough observation of stars we discover they have planets.

So potential alien civilization have had the time, the space and the places to develop yet we seem to be all alone.

The simplest explanation is that spacefaring civilizations must be exceptionally rare. Whether is life itself, eukaryotic life, intelligent life or becoming a civilization that is the filter we don't know.

There has to be life out there doesn’t there

My theory is this. It's a numbers game.

The conditions for life as we know it (Jim) are very exacting. The chances of another 'goldilocks' world is highly improbable.

But there are a vast amount of galaxies in the visible universe. Each galaxy contains a vast amount of stars. Estimates are difficult but depending on who you believe that's possibly around 7x10^22 - or 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 - stars in the visible universe. (One for the numerologists, that's about the same as the mass of the moon in kilograms. Makes you think.) If we assume that 5% of those are sun-like and one in five has an Earth-like planet in the right place (which are not wildly implausible assumptions) that give us *grabs a calculator* 700,000,000,000,000,000,000 (7x10^20) potential New Earths.

And the visible universe is a drop in the ocean of what we suspect to be out there.

Suddenly, it seems highly unlikely that there isn't life - and possibly intelligent life - out there. It's just so very far away and we are so very bad at comprehending big numbers.

For added lols,

7×10^22 (seven and 22 zeros) as above is probably about the number of stars in the known universe.
7x10^20 is probably about the number of grains of sand on the Earth.
7x10^19 is probably about the number of atoms in a grain of sand.

I'm not quite sure whether 'really big' or 'really small' is harder to get your head around.

I prefer "the zoo" hypothesis.  there are aliens out there.  They are watching us and waiting for us to either grow up - when we will be contacted or become a danger - when we will be exterminated

cougar - we do not know that life bearing "goldilocks" planets are rare.  Earth type life perhaps but other are possible.  Low temperature "slow life" based around the weird proprieties of helium at very low temps, Life forms based on sulpher, phosperous or silicon rather that carbon etc etc - plus stuff that we cannot even imagine

( IIRC people have worked out chemical chain reactions / cycles that could work for all of them)

I deliberately said "... as we know it." Life as we don't know it is a whole other tin of annelids. (-:

They are watching us and waiting for us to either grow up

God I hope they're not on STW! 😆

I believe there are other worlds with life, they're probably very similar to ours but just on the other side of the universe so we'll never bump into them.

Considering things at an intergalactic scale is pretty much just a mathematical and philosophical exercise though. I can't imagine any practical way of every interacting with a civilization in another galaxy.

I guess its possible if there are any civilization at Stage III on the Kardashev scale that we might be able to see evidence of it across intergalactic distances but I don't think we'll be shaking hands or even joining any Zoom calls ever.

Makes you think.

Interesting stuff! I listened to a podcast on SETI recently, they are now searching for laser pulses as well as radio waves as this is now considered an equally likely form of communication for an advanced civilisation (even though the possibility was apparently pointed out to SETI in the 60s by one of the inventors of the laser!)

Gravitational waves?  Shake a black hole about and it will produce pulses in gravity

Cougar - even in the solar system there is plenty of chance of life in the gas giants.  Lots of chemical soup and the heat and pressure speeds up reactions

They are watching us and waiting for us to either grow up

God I hope they’re not on STW!

Explains why the moderation on the forum is out of this world.

I believe there are other worlds with life, they’re probably very similar to ours but just on the other side of the universe so we’ll never bump into them.

A very good point you make, and Cougars table napkin maths too- but get this - the incomprehensibly huuuuuuge distances involved are only one half of the problem.

The other half of the problem, is that you need to consider time as well.

The big bang occured about 13.5 BILLION years ago.
The Human race has existed for approximatley 90,000 years, or around for about 0.0006% of known time, so far.

That's an incredibly small window of opportinity in the grand scale of things.

The rise and fall of humans will be a barely detectable flash in the pan, time wise, and likewise for any other intelligent life.

So that's another cheeery thought! 😀

Every possibility is a possibility. We could be the only universe with no other life forms, although it's unlikely, it's possible.

It's just like that given the possibility that some universe there are simulated universes, then we probably don't live in universe 0 that isn't the first non simulated universe.

I can't remember where I read it but a character in a book has a theory that the best place to find aliens would be during a total solar eclipse. The theory was that once space exploration is possible then tourism will surely follow. The fact that our moon exactly occludes the sun during an eclipse is probably a very rare phenomenon and could attract alien tourists to come and experience it. The idea was that during an eclipse, rather than watch the event, you look around at your fellow star gazers and look for any unusual behaviour/body shapes etc... Voila! Aliens 🙂
I thought it was Douglas Adams but my Google-Foo is failing me today...

Found it, Iain Banks; Transition. Knew I'd read it before!

"What an incredible coincidence it is that our moon fits exactly over our sun. Talk to astronomers and they’ll tell you that Earth’s moon is relatively much bigger than any other moon round any other planet. Most planets, like Jupiter and Saturn and so on, have moons that are tiny in comparison to themselves. Earth’s moon is enormous, and very close to us. If it was smaller or further away you’d only ever get partial eclipses; bigger or closer and it hide the sun completely and there’d be no halo of light round the moon at totality. This is an astounding coincidence, an incredible piece of luck. And for all we know, eclipses like this are unique. This could be a phenomenon that happens on Earth and nowhere else.

"So, hold that thought, okay?

"Now, supposing there are aliens. Not E.T. aliens – not that cute or alone. Not Independence Day aliens – not that crazily aggressive – but, well, regular aliens. Yeah? Regular aliens. It’s perfectly possible, when you think of it. We’re here, after all, and Earth is just one small planet circling one regular-size sun in one galaxy. There are a quarter of a billion suns in this one galaxy and quarter of a billion galaxies in the universe; maybe more. We already know of hundreds of other planets around other suns, and we’ve only just started looking for them. Scientists tell us that almost every star might have planets. How many of those might harbour life? The Earth is ancient, but the universe is even more ancient. Who knows how many civilisations were around before Earth came into existence, or existed while we were growing up, or exist now?

"So, if there are civilised aliens, you’d guess they can travel between stars. You’d guess their power sources and technology would be as far beyond ours as supersonic jets, nuclear submarines and space shuttles are beyond some tribe in the Amazon still making dugout canoes. And if they’re curious enough to do the science and invent the technology, they’ll be curious enough to use it to go exploring. “Now, most jet travel on Earth is for tourism. Not business; tourism. Would our smart, curious aliens really be that different from us? I don’t think so. Most of them would be tourists. Like us, they’d go on cruise ships. And would they want to actually come to a place like Earth, set foot – or tentacle, or whatever – here? Rather than visit via some sort of virtual reality set-up? Well, some would settle for second-best, yes. Maybe the majority of people would.

"But the high rollers, the super-wealthy, the elite, they’d want the real thing. They’d want the bragging rights, they’d want to be able to say they’d really been to whatever exotic destinations would be on a Galactic Grand Tour. And who knows what splendours they’d want to fit in; their equivalent of the Grand Canyon, or Venice, Italy, or the Great Wall of China or Yosemite or the Pyramids?

"But what I want to propose to you is that, as well as all those other wonders, they would definitely want to see that one precious thing that we have and probably nobody else does. They’d want to see our eclipse. They’d want to look through the Earth’s atmosphere with their own eyes and see the moon fit over the sun, watch the light fade down to almost nothing, listen to the animals nearby fall silent and feel with their own skins the sudden chill in the air that comes with totality. Even if they can’t survive in our atmosphere, even if they need a spacesuit to keep them alive, they’d still want to get as close as they possibly could to seeing it in the raw, in as close to natural conditions as it’s possible to arrange. They’d want to be here, amongst us, when the shadow passes. “So that’s where you look for aliens. In the course of an eclipse totality track. When everybody else is looking awestruck at the sky, you need to be looking round for anybody who looks weird or overdressed, or who isn’t coming out of their RV or their moored yacht with the heavily smoked glass.

"If they’re anywhere, they’re there, and as distracted – and so as vulnerable – as anybody else staring up in wonder at this astonishing, breathtaking sight.

https://www.bradford-delong.com/2011/12/quote-of-the-day-december-28-2011.html

The fact that our moon exactly occludes the sun during an eclipse is probably a very rare phenomenon and could attract alien tourists to come and experience it. The idea was that during an eclipse, rather than watch the event, you look around at your fellow star gazers and look for any unusual behaviour/body shapes etc… Voila! Aliens

As do many trillions of moons orbiting many billions of planets, there's no particular reason to be on earth to observe this 'phenomena'.

As do many trillions of moons orbiting many billions of planets, there’s no particular reason to be on earth to observe this ‘phenomena’.

And you know this how, exactly?

What blows my mind is that in an infinite universe there has to be another planet identical to ours, with another welshfarmer adding the same comments to another single-track forum. What's more, there will also be an infinite number of identical planets out there.

Woah there! A duplicate STW?

Head.

Blown.

I'm having the mods close it down as a duplicate.

The big bang occured about 13.5 BILLION years ago.

The Human race has existed for approximatley 90,000 years, or around for about 0.0006% of known time, so far.

And somehow in the last couple of hundred years since the industrial revolution we've manage to **** it up so badly we've only got a few years before irreparable damage is inevitable.

Edit - damage is already irreparable, I mean to say 'so bad that we wipe ourselves out'

irreparable damage

Calm that ego, it's totally repairable, just not on a time scale that suits us.

As do many trillions of moons orbiting many billions of planets, there’s no particular reason to be on earth to observe this ‘phenomena’.

Sorry sir.

And somehow in the last couple of hundred years since the industrial revolution we’ve manage to **** it up so badly we’ve only got a few years before irreparable damage is inevitable.

That's the next part of that theory which was missed out above - there may be/have been plenty of intelligent civilisations but they mostly manage to wipe themselves out too quickly, or do enough damage to themselves that they can't continue their interstellar development.

As do many trillions of moons orbiting many billions of planets, there’s no particular reason to be on earth to observe this ‘phenomena’.

Moons orbiting around planets isn't the important bit. Banks postulated that our moon is an unusually sized satellite compared to most others, and sits at just the right point in orbit, at just the right distance from the sun to make an eclipse a special thing. He wasn't the first to point this out (my father mentioned this to me decades ago and he's no scientist) and was only writing fiction, but he was quite a lot cleverer than most.

It its infinite possibilities and part of what nature is, then what we see in nature is it occasionally spits out something thats gone a wee bit askew. Something that wasn't meant to happen, but with so many things happening its inevitable something goes wrong somewhere.

Possibly life itself is the unintended possibility.

Banks postulated that our moon is an unusually sized satellite compared to most others, and sits at just the right point in orbit, at just the right distance from the sun to make an eclipse a special thing.

as a scientist, it's 'coincidences' like that which make me question the existence of god far more than the fact someone wrote a book and built a church.

as a scientist, it’s ‘coincidences’ like that which make me question the existence of god far more than the fact someone wrote a book and built a church

Yeah, and in an infinite universe with the potential for aliens there'd have to be things that we would describe as 'godlike'. It wouldn't mean that they were actually gods, anymore than I am to my cat. But, possibly, aliens put the moon in the right place to enjoy a proper eclipse.

Is this not just a form of confirmation bias?

That is to say, if the relative observable sizes of the sun and moon weren't similar, we wouldn't all be sat here thinking it noteworthy.

I suspect there is other life out there somewhere but would we even recognise it if we saw it?
I doubt other life would be humanoid and it may exist in such unrecognisable dimensions to make no sense to us.
I think it's the end of Men in Black where it turns out the milky way is the inside of an alien's marble - that sort of thing!
What we can detect is based on our human senses and other life may have evolved in such a way that it's impossible to observe.

Is this not just a form of confirmation bias?

That is to say, if the relative observable sizes of the sun and moon weren’t similar, we wouldn’t all be sat here thinking it noteworthy.

Not really - no-one's suggesting it seriously. It was a quote taken from a book, which someone mocked without picking up on the most important bit of info.

What we can detect is based on our human senses and other life may have evolved in such a way that it’s impossible to observe.

Careful now. Someone on here suggested recently that trees might have a different form of intelligence and it didn't go down well. We're all too simian for your outlandish thinking. (I've always loved the idea of the 'intelligent shade of blue' that Douglas Adams mentions in Hitchhikers.)

(I’ve always loved the idea of the ‘intelligent shade of blue’

That was the Oovaloo or something? Gnn that's not quite right is it.

Hooloovoo, I looked it up.

https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Hooloovoo

The Hooloovoo resemble a super-intelligent shade of the colour blue.
...
It is ambiguous whether the Hooloovoo are super-intelligent compared to other galactic inhabitants, or only by comparison to other shades of blue

😂

I think it’s the end of Men in Black where it turns out the milky way is the inside of an alien’s marble – that sort of thing!

Indeed. The universe was formed by an explosion, which is still happening as the universe is expanding.

So like all explosions that will eventually stop and either end abruptly, or the tailing edge will catch up .

I've no idea the mechanics of an explosion.

I think what should be thought about is(in relation to your men in black scenario) is what is happening inside an explosion. What is being formed in the expanding gases. Are they swirling in turmoil, creating little eddies, that go on for so long then petre(peter?) out.

And if thats the case then we, and our galaxy and all the other phenomena are just these little eddies.

... moon placement...

Given Cougar's sums I wouldn't be surprised if there were thousands of moons with the same relative size and orbital location. With that in mind I would take Bank's fiction as saying aliens put the moon there because it was cheaper to do than keep travelling longer distances to another eclipse... possibly.

And if thats the case then we, and our galaxy and all the other phenomena are just these little eddies.

So every time the kids set off a fun snap.....

So every time the kids set off a fun snap…..

A trillion trillion planetary systems born and snuffed out in an instant.

but if time is relative.... we could be in a universe created by one of those children.

makes you think....

The universe was formed by an explosion

the “Big Bang” – an absolutely terrible name! – wasn’t an explosion (at least not anything like one we’d be familiar with)

I had a friend/colleague/drinking buddy when I worked in cancer research years ago, who was very clever and had a PhD in radiotherapy. He hated things like this. It was when the dinosaur/meteorite extinction theory was first becoming popular and I remember him ranting about 'bloody Americans, only happy when there's lots of explosions, fireworks and deaths.'

Sorry, but its obvious how the dinosaurs died out. There can only be one explanation.

So like all explosions that will eventually stop and either end abruptly, or the tailing edge will catch up .

The opposite is actually the case. The expansion of the universe is actually accelerating.

I'll just put this here: https://earthsky.org/earth/eclipses-on-earth-and-other-planets/

So while our eclipse experience on Earth today is virtually unrivaled anywhere in the solar system, it is simply a temporary coincidence.

There are about 200 billion stars just in our galaxy, A low guess for the extrapolated universe is 10 to the 24th solar systems with planets, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or a trillion trillion.

And you're still missing the point.

It was a joke.

On that though, apparently Jupiter has solar eclipses thanks to the massiveness of Ganymede and the distance from the sun. Unfortunately nobody has figured out a practical way to observe it.

The uniqueness of our eclipse is also down to the fact that the moon just about exactly covers the sun giving rise to the phenomena observed during an eclipse. The moon is in an increasing orbit though so we'll only be able to enjoy this for another 50 million years.

The chances of another ‘goldilocks’ world is highly improbable.

It gets worse, I think the current thinking is that not only do you need a goldilocks planet, you'll pretty much need a goldilocks Solar System. Without Jupiter capturing all the nasty nasty stuff (asteroids and so on) in it's gravity, it' likely passing debris would have done for us as well as for the dinosaurs.

Ahh, I've clearly not had enough coffee... or too much 😀

The uniqueness of our eclipse is also down to the fact that the moon just about exactly covers the sun giving rise to the phenomena observed during an eclipse.

The uniqueness of our eclipse is also down to our unique vantage point. (-:

It gets worse, I think the current thinking is that not only do you need a goldilocks planet, you’ll pretty much need a goldilocks Solar System. Without Jupiter capturing all the nasty nasty stuff (asteroids and so on) in it’s gravity, it’ likely passing debris would have done for us as well as for the dinosaurs.

That's a really good point. I wonder though (and I don't know the answer to this) whether the factors that created us would typically create a similar solar system due to [physics] or whether its a complete Brownian Motion dice roll each time? Ie, is there a reason beyond pure chance that we have a Jupiter and an Earth and all the others or is that just how it all exploded and coalesced?