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'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech

space.com

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Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech

#251

Post by not2b »

tromp wrote: post #47
jb1991 wrote: post #17

What is the "mathematically perfect" aspect of this system? I don't see it in the article.

As detailed in the companion article [1], for every 54 orbits of planet 1, planets 2..6 orbit 36, 24, 16, 12, and 8 times respectively, giving successive ratios of 2/3, 2/3, 2/3, 3/4 and 3/4. After those 54 planet 1 orbits, all planets are in the same relative position. [1] https://www.space.com/six-sub-neptunes-found-100-light-years...

This could be a natural phenomenon. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_resonance

Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech

#252

Post by aswanson »

jamesgreenleaf wrote: post #227
hermitcrab wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not at all clear to me why the harmonics makes it any more worth searching for aliens than any other solar system. a) Why would aliens expend the enormous energy required to engineer this? b) Isn't it vastly more likely to occur naturally as some sort of resonance effect?

> Why would aliens expend the enormous energy required to engineer this? So there are these great big buildings in Egypt...

Lol

Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech

#253

Post by Karrot_Kream »

beambot wrote: post #146
stronglikedan wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> other than by pure chance Barring intelligent design, there's an extremely good chance that at least one of these systems exist, and an equally good chance that only one exists, and we're just lucky enough to have observed it.

Why would it be an equally good chance that only one exists?

It depends on what priors you put on things like planetary size and orbital periods. If your prior is uniform, then it is just as likely for this configuration to exist as any other and because the probability mass is uniformly distributed (e.g. every outcome is equally likely) then there's probably only one of it.

Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech

#254

Post by a_gnostic »

jamesgreenleaf wrote: post #227
hermitcrab wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not at all clear to me why the harmonics makes it any more worth searching for aliens than any other solar system. a) Why would aliens expend the enormous energy required to engineer this? b) Isn't it vastly more likely to occur naturally as some sort of resonance effect?

> Why would aliens expend the enormous energy required to engineer this? So there are these great big buildings in Egypt...

…mostly big piles of rocks… nothing too special…

Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech

#256

Post by denton-scratch »

Kubuxu wrote: post #182
denton-scratch wrote: post #81

> radio waves from satellites and telescopes beaming out in the plane of our solar system Surely radio telescopes don't "beam out" radio waves? They receive them. If they are configured to transmit, like the Deep Space Array, they don't beam in the plane of the solar system; they beam at whatever spaceship they are trying to communicate with. Satellites even less; they have to conserve power, so they don't send radio…

We use some radio telescopes for radar astronomy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_astronomy

Thanks for that link. Oddly, it doesn't seem to have come to my attention before.

Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech

#257

Post by hinkley »

Animats wrote: post #202
tromp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As detailed in the companion article [1], for every 54 orbits of planet 1, planets 2..6 orbit 36, 24, 16, 12, and 8 times respectively, giving successive ratios of 2/3, 2/3, 2/3, 3/4 and 3/4. After those 54 planet 1 orbits, all planets are in the same relative position. [1] https://www.space.com/six-sub-neptunes-found-100-light-years...

Neat. Is this something that tends to happen if there are large planets close to the star? In our solar system, the inner planets are small and the big outer planets are too far out to affect each other much.

Some of the Jovian moons are in harmonic orbits.

Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech

#258

Post by hkgirjenk »

hermitcrab wrote: post #198
tromp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As detailed in the companion article [1], for every 54 orbits of planet 1, planets 2..6 orbit 36, 24, 16, 12, and 8 times respectively, giving successive ratios of 2/3, 2/3, 2/3, 3/4 and 3/4. After those 54 planet 1 orbits, all planets are in the same relative position. [1] https://www.space.com/six-sub-neptunes-found-100-light-years...

It is not at all clear to me why the harmonics makes it any more worth searching for aliens than any other solar system. a) Why would aliens expend the enormous energy required to engineer this? b) Isn't it vastly more likely to occur naturally as some sort of resonance effect?

Art, music of the spheres (literally)

Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech

#259

Post by bamboozled »

hermitcrab wrote: post #198
tromp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As detailed in the companion article [1], for every 54 orbits of planet 1, planets 2..6 orbit 36, 24, 16, 12, and 8 times respectively, giving successive ratios of 2/3, 2/3, 2/3, 3/4 and 3/4. After those 54 planet 1 orbits, all planets are in the same relative position. [1] https://www.space.com/six-sub-neptunes-found-100-light-years...

It is not at all clear to me why the harmonics makes it any more worth searching for aliens than any other solar system. a) Why would aliens expend the enormous energy required to engineer this? b) Isn't it vastly more likely to occur naturally as some sort of resonance effect?

So when point out telescope at it, we say "ah, Aliens"?!

Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech

#260

Post by sirsinsalot »

muttled wrote: post #94
spacecadet wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, better then them finding the industry 10 years ago.

Find an old webserver in the wreckage. Never able to see what it serves because it requires Flash.

(in alien) ... what is a Macromedia Jeff?
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