Earlier quoted context omitted.
Creationism.
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Creationism is effectively identical to the simulation hypothesis. It's odd that people here will accept the latter while immediately dismissing the former.
The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful
181–190 of 279 posts
Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful
#182https://archive.is/2025.08.26-184549/https://www.iflscience....
Thanks... The fact that websites are now blocking Firefox by default as an "ad-blocker" is saddening.
Interesting, I just clicked the link (in FF on Android with ad blocking) and it loaded fine, without adverts or popups.
Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful
#183Simple programmer here. I have a dumb question. What about the "Wow!" signal is special, or unique? What makes someone see it and think "wow"? Is there some kind of information encoded in the signal?
The signal's frequency is extremely narrowband and matches the natural emission frequency of hydrogen atoms. This is the most likely frequency one might choose if aiming to have an unknown recipient guess and listen in. The signal's recorded intensity followed a bell curve typical of a fixed celestial source, because as the Earth rotated, the telescope's stationary beam swept across the signal's point of origin.
Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
We won't. while we don't know for sure if there is life there is nothing close enough to contact. The closest star is 4 light years, anything within 20 light years has been studied and has no signs of radio or other communication. Anything more than 20 light years is a 40 year message round trip - too far to establish contact in your likely lifetime. (If you are very young maybe 30 light years - but that doesn't add…
HN armchair astronomer question time. What's your favorite answer to the Fermi Paradox? Any crazy far-fetched sci-fi / pseudo-scientific ideas? I'm not really a fan of "Dark Forest". I prefer these: - We're truly rare, maybe even first. Intelligence is extremely hard. LUCA is old, civilization happened yesterday. - Fragile universe. It's easy to destroy universes by accidentally setting off vacuum collapse. This woul…
My favorite is "Carbon is the great filter".
Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful
#185Simple programmer here. I have a dumb question. What about the "Wow!" signal is special, or unique? What makes someone see it and think "wow"? Is there some kind of information encoded in the signal?
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Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
To add to this, it has generally been believed that the Wow signal didn't come from Earth. But being a rare event no one wanted to rule it out completely. Technically these papers don't even rule that out. But they do a good job at expanding the problem of figuring out what that signal might have been. I'll put it this way: people would probably be more surprised if the Wow signal was terrestrial in origin than extra…
I actually briefly worked as a "paranormal investigator" when I was hard up for money --- someone came to me with some satellite photos they felt had evidence of UFOs. I found a scientist who ran said satellites, who explained what seemed odd were artificacts of the instrument, and they were only noticed because they occured in the area of the Nimitz[1], which then got heavily OSINTed by the woo woo crowd. I never to…
One guy I know had one of those UFO pics. When I saw it I knew instantly it was an iridium flare. I knew it because I was dead set on seeing a good one with several apps on my phone to track them. I showed him exactly where he was standing on a map, the time of day, and which satellite it was and when he could see it again by time/date/location. He had none of that. He became totally mad at me. I was kinda sad as I was just wanted to see one good iridium flare of that magnitude.
Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
We won't. while we don't know for sure if there is life there is nothing close enough to contact. The closest star is 4 light years, anything within 20 light years has been studied and has no signs of radio or other communication. Anything more than 20 light years is a 40 year message round trip - too far to establish contact in your likely lifetime. (If you are very young maybe 30 light years - but that doesn't add…
HN armchair astronomer question time. What's your favorite answer to the Fermi Paradox? Any crazy far-fetched sci-fi / pseudo-scientific ideas? I'm not really a fan of "Dark Forest". I prefer these: - We're truly rare, maybe even first. Intelligence is extremely hard. LUCA is old, civilization happened yesterday. - Fragile universe. It's easy to destroy universes by accidentally setting off vacuum collapse. This woul…
Mine is the Great Filter, basically a unification of life itself being rare and the universe being fragile. Though I don't think it reaches the level of destroying the universe, I think the filter happens at the level of being able to destroy a world or maybe a galaxy.
I think evolution creates a local maxima that's incompatible with access to advanced technology (read: unbelievable quantities of energy). There's a big technological gap between having enough energy to destroy the entire species and being able to colonize other galaxies, and some madman ends up destroying the species during that gap.
We have nuclear weapons that could come close to wiping out all intelligent life on the planet and we're nowhere close to intergalactic colonization or even traveling at speeds that would make that feasible. It seems probable that such travel requires a discovery that could be weaponized to destroy the planet.
Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's like saying God is the best explanation for any newly described natural phenomenon.
God is an extraterrestial or not? :)
In the ancient view of the cosmos, God/gods, the heavens and other divine beings were part of the same universe. They were literally above the Earth, but made of a different kind of substance. Or down in the depths.
At some point more this shifted to the divine being an entirely separate supernatural domain.
Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful
#189Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful
#190I had a theory that it was someone walking across the field with an electronic device, like a flashlight. So I looked up the duration of the signal, size of the field, and average walking pace. It matched perfectly.
Would you mind expanding on your theory more?
Trust me bro theory