And that is if they received our signals, are able to identify that they are artificial signals out of the background noise of the rest of the universe because the signal degrades and gets weaker as the broadcast expands, they decide to send a reply back (even though they just recieve chatter at that point, not intentional communication to them), and then actually sends us a signal back. It's no wonder that hasn't happened yet.

There's around 10-15,000 stars in a 100 light years radius. The chance that any of those stars have habitable planets with intelligent life with the technology to receive and send radio signals and is listening for extraterrestial signals and can discern those broadcasts from background noise and would reply to chatter.... that's a small chance.

[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world 84 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

[–] dan1101@lemmy.world 4 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

People are so obsessed with contacting aliens, but maybe they are really really annoying.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 hour ago

I got some bad news for you. We are the annoying aliens.

"Squeglesquortsquersqueweldorf" ["The earthlings are broadcasting again. Maintain radio silence; do not respond!"]

[–] akwd169@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago

So not too different from us then?

[–] DaMonsterKnees@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I did not order these ton of bricks, but I'm grateful. Thanks friend!

[–] partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Space expands like bread expands, everywhere all at once. Your galaxies are like raisins in that bread. The space around them is carrying them while it expands. This means it’s pretty much guaranteed, you’ll eventually be gaining distance from all other galaxies faster than the speed of light. Because the distance isn’t a function of speed, but growth — so it can go faster than c. You, however, can never go faster than c. So, the picture is right.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Just invent wormholes to access hyperspace, and cross the universe in one step

[–] partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I don’t think you want to deal with wormhole TSA, friend.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 points 51 minutes ago (1 children)

You go through TSA at the space ports before boarding the ship. The only thing different about going through a wormhole is a bit of turbulence, some spaghettification, and the unverifiable possibility that the physical organism which gets reconstituted on the other side is merely an empty vessel programmed to unconsciously imitate your habits and mannerisms, while the conscious entity that is you actually perished upon the dissolution of your original body.

[–] partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 1 points 48 minutes ago (1 children)

unverifiable possibility that the physical organism which gets reconstituted on the other side is merely an empty vessel programmed to unconsciously imitate your habits and mannerisms

Oh yeah, I’ve tried anesthesia before.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 points 34 minutes ago

Is that a theory about anesthesia? I haven't heard about that.

I'm referring to ideas about teleportation and time travel, in which the physical organism dissolves and is reconstituted, and appears to be alive and conscious on the other side, but the actual conscious entity died upon dissolution and was not resurrected upon reconstitution.

[–] pglpm@lemmy.ca 17 points 9 hours ago

There are around 20000 stars in that little 200-light-year-wide dot.

https://www.pas.rochester.edu/~emamajek/memo_star_dens.html and 1pc≈3.3ly.

[–] LurkingLuddite@piefed.social 73 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (31 children)

Before anyone gets too cocky, remember that signal strength drops off at the square of distance. Even this tiny blip of range generally pales in comparison to the background radiation. We're still almost invisible to our own technology at any serious distance.

For a reference, see how absolutely difficult it is to talk to the Voyager probes. The signal they receive is absolutely tiny. (20 billion times smaller than what it takes to run a digital watch, see the Deep Space Network for what does the talking).

If any aliens have heard us, their technology already outstrips ours by orders of magnitude.

[–] zedgeist@lemmy.world 27 points 13 hours ago

Thanks for the pep talk.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Obligatory Contact

spoiler

(I can't find the actual scene where they explain how the aliens used the Hitler Berlin Games broadcast because it was the first really high-power transmission, but got as close as I could.)

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[–] finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago

Apparently "the first audio radio broadcast of voice and music occurred on December 24, 1906, when Canadian-American inventor Reginald A Fessenden transmitted from Brant Rock, Massachusetts. This historic transmission, heard by shipboard radio operators along the Atlantic Coast, included Fessenden playing the violin solo of 'O Holy Night' and reading from the Bible, marking the beginning of amplitude modulation (AM) broadcasting".

I wonder if that's what aliens would hear as the first sign of humans?

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Soo, the grey slury inbetween is more rock-heavy, while the blue stuff is mostly hydrogen?

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Generally speaking, clouds of hydrogen are usually pink.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Yeah, i thought more of the implications on gas planets vs. rocky planets forming. We are on the outer rim of a dusty region, if this illustration is accurate.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 6 points 10 hours ago

What's also neat, is that this diagram won't need updating any time soon. Maybe in a hundred years, we can swap the 2 for a 3 in the label. 🥴

[–] Hello_there@fedia.io 10 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

This is an approximation, right? Because there's no giant cosmic mirror that lets us see our galaxy from far away like this?

[–] zedgeist@lemmy.world 10 points 12 hours ago

See the text in the bottom left of the image.

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