Stephen Hawking: Aliens probably exist, but leave them alone

[Darwin]

[QUOTE=danielan;281076]:

We're advertising that we are here.


Not to worry. I read recently that our radiomagnetic emanations, radio, tv, etc. etc. which we've always thought were advertising our presence actually fade into the cosmic background noise and are indistiguishable out past about half a light year. Supposedly even if an alien race built a ten mile wide radio antenna and pointed it straight at us they'd get nothing but hash. Aliens would likely have to just happen across us or discover us as a result of a galaxy wide planetary survey. Either scenario is incredibly unlikely--make the Powerball lottery look like a sure thing.

[deadohsky]

Not to worry. I read recently that our radiomagnetic emanations, radio, tv, etc. etc. which we've always thought were advertising our presence actually fade into the cosmic background noise and are indistiguishable out past about half a light year...

I wasn't aware of that. Do you happen to have a link or anything? That sounds like an interesting read.

[danielan]

Not to worry.

Yea, I'm not worried. Technically some time cultivating tobacco fields would be good for me.

Besides, I'll be dead before they get here based on our high-power directional transmissions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_SETI

[sgreger1]

I wasn't aware of that. Do you happen to have a link or anything? That sounds like an interesting read.

Yah this is true. Cosmic radiation eats it up at some point, even if there were entire planet sized antennas we would never hear anything from them unless they were extremely close.

[tom502]

I think the "aliens" have been here for a long time already, underground bases, moon base, and mars.

[deadohsky]

Yah this is true. Cosmic radiation eats it up at some point, even if there were entire planet sized antennas we would never hear anything from them unless they were extremely close.

Interesting, kind of disappointing as i have been hoping to see radio contact since i can remember. Then again, with the space and land based telescopes they are developing, we should be able to look down on a planet for an answer at some point. Provided the life, if any there, is somewhat large multicellular and above ground at the time we are looking.

[f. bandersnatch]

I think the "aliens" have been here for a long time already, underground bases, moon base, and mars.

I think that's what that new piece of legislation in Arizona is about.

[sgreger1]

Interesting, kind of disappointing as i have been hoping to see radio contact since i can remember. Then again, with the space and land based telescopes they are developing, we should be able to look down on a planet for an answer at some point. Provided the life, if any there, is somewhat large multicellular and above ground at the time we are looking.

Yah I think a whole generation inspired by hollywood movies was hoping the same thing. The reality of it though is we probably wouldn't hear them for much different reasons. I mean look at our communications, we went from the pony express, to the telegraph, to the telephone, to the cellular phone, to blue tooth, ,wi fi, and now we have all kind of other sattelite based communication etc etc, and this was all in a little over 100 years, most of it happening in the last 50 years. So if aliens are in any way advanced, they likely are using something way out of our spectrum and we wouldn't hear it and they wouldn't hear us.


Our telescopes right now can't even see earth sized planets (even close ones), but soon they will be able to. Even then, our closes galaxy (Andromeda) is 2.5 million light years away, any light we see from out there will be just a snapshot of the past, it could be buzzing with aliens but unless they were there 2.5 million years ago, we would't see anything.

Wouldn't that be sweet to see the light from a civilization that has long been extinct, and study what it does over the years (since looking through a telescope is like looking into the past) leading up to it's eventual extinction.

[sgreger1]

I think that's what that new piece of legislation in Arizona is about.

If Aliens came to earth and the democrats supported them, the republicans would hastily work on legislation to profile against aliens lol. ENFORCE ER SPACE BuRDERS, THE'YL Tuk ur JErbS!!!11!!one!!

[tom502]

I find the Planet X thing to be interesting. It seems to have happened in the far past, and also tied in with 2012.

[sgreger1]

I find the Planet X thing to be interesting. It seems to have happened in the far past, and also tied in with 2012.

I have heard a lot about this alleged planet x/Nibiru thing but the concensus is that it doens't exist. There has never been any actual evidence of it other than folkwlore, and scientists have conluded that a planet of that size would have some sort of gravitational pull that could be observed on the objects around it, but no such pull exists. So we can't see it, and math disproves it's existance, so I can't really say I buy into the planet x thing.

For example, if it were to be coming around for a pass in 2012, we would already be seeing it by now, it's not like it would just pop up overnight.

What's the theory behind it anyways, is it supposed to be some planet with aliens on it or something that comes by once ever 20k years?


EDIT: Tom, this is for you

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...e-on-mars.html

Some new discovery last night, havn't read it yet, but it comes from the sun so 50/50 chance they just made it up lol.

[tom502]

Thanks, I saw that Sun article earlier. Of course I agree with the marsanomaly website.

The Planet X thing is rather new to me, I've just looked into it a little. But it's a "planet" beyond Pluto, which I read could be an unborn sun, or brown dwarf, I think it's called, and it makes a narrow oval like rotation of the Sun every so often, which brings it near the Earth, and is said to have caused past calamities.

There are many websites, but I just found this one, and it looks decent. It does have some scientific backing, though if a giant, bigger than Earth low powered sun is going to rub up on Earth, I think this would be suppressed info to the masses.

http://xfacts.com/x2.htm

See the other pages and links as well.

[tom502]

Now this site looks good, and shows the 2012 date, and the scientific media, and the various date predictions:

http://churchofcriticalthinking.org/planetx.html

Not much longer

[sgreger1]

2012 will turn out to be just like y2k and every major end-of-times prediction that has been incorrect fo rhte last 5 thousand years.

But let me give youa brief history on how the planet X thing arrived in our popular culture:


Orriginally, the idea was brought about by the sumerians who are one of the oldest known civilisations and aparently showed some aptittude of understanding astronomy. In their little calendar/star chart they included a 10th planet, and they were right about things such as the earth revolving around the sun, the earth not being flat etc, and so many people put stock into what they believed.


However, Planet X was a common designation for anything that "should" exist in our solar system but has ye tto be discovered. In other words, the math doens't make sense unless there is another planet. This happened with neptune maaaaany years ago, and then again with pluto. The math all makes sense now and the craze a few years back that the mass of our solar system was lacking without adding in an extra planet have since been revised.

"Planet x" is a generalized term that caught on a couple hundred years ago that was used to describe unknown planets of our solar system. Neptune was once a planet x. Astronomers calculated that the orbital period of Uranus was affected by another object, probably a planet, that was beyond Uranus. They calculated the orbital period of this planet x, and found where it would be at a specific time. They saw the planet, and it was no longer considered planet x. It got its name: Neptune.

Scientists miscalculated the orbital period of Neptune being affected by another planet, but by chance, their miscalculations revealed Pluto. This icy world was also considered planet x, and was first seen in 1930. It was considered a planet until 2006 when it was demoted to a dwarf planet, and now a plutoid.

Sedna, Quaour, Eris, and Ceris were all considered planet Xs, and were eventually classified as plutoids.

Now that we know the true definition of a planet x, lets talk about the scientific improbabilities of a planet x that is supposed to travel all the way to Earth.

According to the theory, there may be another planet larger than Earth lying in the kupiter belt. The planet is beyond Pluto, the farthest planet in our Solar system, almost 6 million (5 763 920 000 to be exact) kilometers away from us on a regular basis.

There is no such planet beyond Pluto.The biggest object in the kupiter belt is Eris and it is much smaller than Earth.



A brown dwarf would be approximately the same size as Jupiter. Jupiter is I believe the 4th brightest object in our solar system. A thing of that size, even at such great distances, would be clearly visible from earth (likely without the use of a telescope).

For something so massive to be hiding is both mathematically improbable but also it would be easy to spot, yet it is not spotted. As for 2012, if something the size of a brown dwarve were to be anywhere near us in the next 2 years, it would be blatantly apparent and there would be no way to cover it up. It would be clearly visible with the naked eye, and it's massive presence would be knocking thing out of whack all over the solar system while it was en-route to earth.





Long story short, I don't see any scientific or anicdotal evidedence that such a planet exists, and even if it were to exist: A) We'de see it, and B) theres no way it could get here by 2012 from it's current distant location.


So I wouldn't worry about it to much.


As for the life on mars thing, I am confident that at least microbial life (likely as large as algae) exists in vast quantities in our very own solar system. There are a lot of indicators that this may be the case. Methane levels on mars and other observable anomalies would lead one to believe that some type of small, methane pproducing life liekly exists on mars today. Similarly, under the ice of europa, with it's many volcanic vents and conditions similar to earth oceans, it seems that it would be highly unlikely for some type of life to not exist. There are likely at least fish sized lifeforms swimming in it's oceans, and many scientists agree that this scenario is at least possible given what we currently know.

So there is much hope for life in our universe. And if there is life in our universe, than it's almost 100% sure that life is abundant throughout the cosmos. As far as intelligent life, I believe that (like on earth) it all starts small and progressively gets more complex and intelligent over time, so it's likely that intelligent life exists. However, the odds of inteligent life evading us in our own solar system (even as close as mars or the moon) seems highly unlikely, as no government could cover up something happening in a place where an amateur astronomer could view it with a telescope bought at wall mart.

[truthwolf1]

New York Times
June 19, 1982
Search for The 10th Planet

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A pair of American spacecraft may help scientists detect what could be a 10th planet or a giant object billions of miles away, the national Aeronautics and Space Administration said Thursday. Scientists at the space agency's Ames Research Center said the two spacecraft, Pioneer 10 and 11, which are already farther into space than any other man-made object, might add to knowledge of a mysterious object believed to be beyond the solar system's outermost known planets. The space agency said that persistent irregularities in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune "suggest some kind of mystery object is really there" with its distance depending on what it is. If the mystery object is a new planet, it may lie five billion miles beyond the outer orbital ring of known planets, the space agency said. If it is a dark star type of objet, it may be 50 billion miles beyond the known planets; if it is a black hole, 100 billion miles. A black hole is a hypothetical body in space, believed to be a collapsed star so condensed that neither light nor matter can escape from its gravitational field.


New York Times, 30-January-1983,