Why do we want to comunicate with other space life forms when we all can't be friends on earth.
What if other life forms from distant planets came to earth and landed on North Korea and made friends with Johnny Red.... How would the rest of the world tolerate that ?
Touchè.......You're learning very quickly from your Misstres ......Don't forget to turn the knife for maximum effect though while you still feel your able to.........
There is nothing better than a good ole Gloat to start your week off happily....
Please Bee aware though that you could have awakened a huge sleeping Hornets nest and the Queens not very happy with one of its workers.......
I've often wondered why we seem to want that communication - perhaps more accurately, to find out if there is life elsewhere.
I think it's just a yearning to be not alone in such a vast Universe, although any identifiably artificial signals we might detect on Earth are likely to be "only" within our own galaxy.
From a practical scientific point of view it's hard to justify any such attempts because it's a game of assumptions based on compounded chances. Firstly, the chances of analogous societies elsewhere in observable range are very low, the chances of actually discovering they exist are even lower, and those of "communicating" with them, too fantastic to consider.
I agree ,but there must be countless billions of planets where life is evolving to.....it's just so totally inconceivable that we are all alone in that great big void out there....:(
You are probably right but even if there are comparable societies among them, capable of communicating with us, there are two basic barriers to any conversation.
The first is that a signal from one to the other would take as long in Earth years to arrive, as the distance in light-years. So even if their Planet Zog is only 10 light years away (very close in Space terms, in our own area of the galaxy) it would take 20 years for us to receive their reply.
The second barrier, related to the first, is signal strength. Our largest optical and radio-telescopes can detect distant very large stars, and far-away galaxies, only because the objects are so big and emit so much power. Because of the way the signals fade with distance, to have any hope of the conversation being possible would require vastly more powerful transmitters than conceivable, certainly on Earth.
If there are similar listeners on Planet Ugg 10 light-years further away still, our radio signal would arrive there at only one-quarter of its level at Zog (not half, as the loss is by inverse-square law). It would probably be lost in the natural radio clutter of interstellar Space, but even if we could "hear" each other, each 2-way leg of a chat with Ugg would take 40 years.
As for intergalactic communication... no. The galaxies are far too far apart.
These are even before you consider such minor matters as languages and historical parallel.
We may be able to decode each others' language, but by "historical parallel" I mean the "alien" society needs to be at least as technically developed as ours - and be at least as curious as us to see if anyone is out there.
Space fiction stories seem to condition us to imagine any other civilisation being axiomatically far more advanced than ours, and on planets essentially similar to Earth, but only for literary reasons. There is no logical reason for any such planets with populations in that stage, being within sensible contact range, and we have no evidence so far that even the planets exist. Quite a lot of planets have been discovered around stars relatively close to us, but very few that might offer similar environmental conditions. Yes, we might be able to send a probe in such a planet's direction but it won't have to go much beyond our Solar System to be out of radio range, so a waste of money and resources.
Communication by space-ship, crewed or not? We certainly don't have the practical means to accelerate anything to anywhere near a suitable speed to reach Zog, ,let alone Ugg, in a sensible time; and it will be out of radio range long before it can ask "Are we nearly there yet?" Even if the Zoggians or Uggians might have solved the problem, we have no genuine evidence of any alien visits even by unmanned probes.
So why might we like to imagine we can communicate with someone on another planet? I think it's far more a cultural than scientific wish even though these share the natural curiosity - instead, a combination of romantic idealism, uncomfortable feelings of loneliness, and simple ego.
Essentially it's just a dream - but we can enjoy Space-fiction novels just as much as we can appreciate and enjoy real Space science.
I watched science program about a year ago.....it was about how things can comunicate across vast distances almost instantly.....it can travel unimaginable distances instantly....
There must be so many things so advanced that we couldn't even begin to understand the concept of......
Come to that......who knows what our governments really know or what they let on about....
The programme was fascinating....it explained things or more what they thought.....they even explained it using experiments they showed....they rotated two dart boards facing each other ten yards apart....they then fired dart guns pointing at each board.....if a dart hit a red segment the other would also hit a red....if it hit a green segment first it would always hit a green....if it hit a red and green it would always hit a red then green.... It was fascinating to watch and wish I had recorded it....It was a science program on our BBC tv....
Ah, the difference is that although these weird effects may be possible, or theoretically so, in the innermost workings of atoms, it doesn't mean they work with large objects like spaceships or planets.
The original question though was about communication, and even by radio alone the sheer distances and power-laws involved keep it the realms of science-fiction. Even before the question of want, as others raise!
Indeed it is - the proof being for or against. So far at least there are no known means for conveying definite masses (physical objects above atomic-particle level) at anything like the speed of electromagnetic radiation (light, etc) - and nothing is known that can travel faster than that. The fastest-moving objects known in the universe are all natural, astronomical bodies, but even these are still moving at definite speeds.
The only known way to communicate with other sufficiently advanced societies would be by radio, but even assuming both parties had the transmitting power and receiving sensitivity available to overcome the distance attenuation, the conversation would be in years per exchange.
If a rocket keeps on accelerating ,would it not eventually pass the speed of light ? Or is there a barrier that it just can't exceed .. Electricty travels at just under the speed of light I've read some where ,so why isn't there other things that can achieve the same....?
It does seem the speed of light is the barrier. It's not a problem for electromagnetic radiation as it has no mass, nor for electricity which is conducted by an atomic effect, but accelerating anything with mass requires a force acting on it all the time, which exceeds the opposing forces trying to retard it.
In Space, clear of any interfering gravitational attraction and with nothing else to add friction, a space-ship can be accelerated to high speeds by a rocket-motor, but once you stop the motor the craft will fly on at the speed it had reached at the cut-off point.
I don't know how the energy required is affected by ultra high speeds such as approaching that of light; but I think as you approach that speed other effects come into play as well. Something though in the laws of physics says the speed of light cannot be exceeded - which means if you could travel anywhere near that fast it would still take over 4 years to approach the Sun's nearest neighbouring star. (The Sun is only about 8 light-minutes, about 93 000 000 miles, away from Earth).
Yes if you are thinking of inter-galactic excursions! Even within the Milky Way, the longer journeys might out-live you.
Space fiction, such as Star Trek, likes to use "warp" techniques, but even if it were possible in theory, I can't help thinking something the size of the Enterprise would never be able to generate the energy I guess would be needed. I do quite like science-fiction, if it's well written and at least vaguely credible - the stories might be pure hokum, but they are fun!
To cross the Milky Way at the speed of light would take two hundred million light years I read somewhere... Have you ever read about the largest planet ever found ?
Randy D 