4 Likes
Uh, isn’t this that ‘superluminal’ neutron star merger?
Please stop using clickbait “science”.
3 Likes
8 Likes
16 cups of mayo?
2 Likes
Is the technology to send such a signal something only a government could harness? I could see some dumb-but-rich-SV type building a giant transmitter. On a long enough timeline, stupidity prevails 
The rumor I heard was the Chinese hacked some equipment and used to to spy on nearby missile tests. Would explain the FBI coming, who are tasked with domestic counter intelligence operations.
1 Like
It’s also from 3 Billion years ago. I’m not sure I have much faith we will make it another million years, let alone a billion.
1 Like
3 billion, 3 million, 300, 30, 3 light years… for all practical purposes, they’re all impossibly far away from us, never to be seen up close except maaaybe, someday, a certain star system 3 light years away.
In the extremely unlikely event that intelligent life in another galaxy could be proven to exist (or have existed, 3 billion years ago), it would be just as interesting and useful to us as finding life on Proxima Centauri.
I, for one, look forward to the inevitable tsunami of religious retconning that would be triggered by such a discovery.
1 Like
Oh great. So I eat the egg salad, and then the eggs hatch. What next?
Excuse me: I’m going to go lie down now, and re-read My Little Golden Book About Zogg.
Update: A problem with the Zogg website – the “Back” and “Next” links take 10-20 seconds to display. The images are quick to load, but navigating to the next image is a tedious series of delays. I previously blamed this on “the site is slow” but now I think the delay is caused by Flash on the pages.
.
10 Likes
Yeah. The only “benefit” to discovering life exists at these unreachable locations is to finally put an end to the question ”Are we alone?"
To which the answer would be “Technically? No. Practically? Yes.”
2 Likes
I think this is a plausible way we discover alien life - we find some weird thing and slowly over years or decades realize there’s not other explanation.
OTOH the idea of “drones” (unmanned autonomous vehicles visiting) has fascinated me ever since reading this NYT article (which sadly didn’t see much discussion on BB)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html
My personal pet theory after readinga book by the same author which outlines many different inexplicable, but highly documented UFO sightings, is that it’s possible something is visiting.
I think the reason the government is so tightlipped is sadly, quite boring: they don’t know what they are either, and think it’s in their best interest to pretend to be top dogs. “There’s weird orbs flying around and we can’t stop them, track them, and don’t know where they’re from or how they work” would not exactly re-assure the public.
Also bonus theory for the end: what if there’s only 1 intelligent life per universe… but many universes?
1 Like
You could always try the online audiobook version.
2 Likes
Interesting story, lots of theories 
Here’s mine: astronomical observatories have a lot of computing power and high bandwidth connections. Massive illicit bitcoin operation. Just kidding. unless I’m right
1 Like
Perhaps it’s our future selves signalling back to Earth that they discovered a way to travel faster than light.
I was just thinking about Tabby’s Star when I saw this headline, because the most recent word I’ve heard on Tabby’s Star is…
Also probably not aliens. Which is a shame. I love a good Dyson sphere, ever since that one episode of TNG.
1 Like
Then I hope as sure as f***k that they believe that old saying about how reaching a destination takes a back seat to making the journey.
Yes?
If we are able to detect that signal from 3 billion light years away, anybody in the neighborhood of the source of the signal was most probably fried by it right when it was emitted.
4 Likes
