Voyager's 'Cosmic Map' of Earth's Location Is Hopelessly Wrong
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Re: Voyager's 'Cosmic Map' of Earth's Location Is Hopelessly Wrong
#2Re: Voyager's 'Cosmic Map' of Earth's Location Is Hopelessly Wrong
#3Because it's a forbes article, I guess this may be a pain for anyone using Adblockers. In summary:
The Voyager disk contained a "map" showing where Earth is. They used pulsars to identify Earth's location. However, since the launch of Voyager we've discovered that there are probably a billion pulsars in the Milky way. We've also discovered that they somewhat unpredictably change the direction in which the pulses are directed. Making it unlikely that Earth's location can be identified using this map.
Nice article, shame about the invasive Ads Forbes uses...
Re: Voyager's 'Cosmic Map' of Earth's Location Is Hopelessly Wrong
#4I'm fine with that! [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Body_II:_Dark_Forest [1]: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Space/stephen-hawking-alien...
Yep, after reading the three body series I feel like I'm much more skeptical about sending out Earths location indiscriminately.
Spoiler: One of the central tenets of this book is that the most logical course of action for any alien discovering another life form, is to destroy it immediately. The story is pretty coherent, but if anyone has references to any scientific/theoretical work on this I'd be very interested in reading it.
Re: Voyager's 'Cosmic Map' of Earth's Location Is Hopelessly Wrong
#5Not to be anti-science, but it is worth taking into account that there are a lot of things we think we know now that may turn out to be wrong. Particularly things that are far away in space and time, where the points of data are few. Popular articles discuss the latest theories as "now we know this to be true." I'm thinking articles about details of the Dinosaurs or the size of distant planets. It may be right, but it could be revised with new knowledge.
Re: Voyager's 'Cosmic Map' of Earth's Location Is Hopelessly Wrong
#6Because it's a forbes article, I guess this may be a pain for anyone using Adblockers. In summary: The Voyager disk contained a "map" showing where Earth is. They used pulsars to identify Earth's location. However, since the launch of Voyager we've discovered that there are probably a billion pulsars in the Milky way. We've also discovered that they somewhat unpredictably change the direction in which the pulses are…
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Re: Voyager's 'Cosmic Map' of Earth's Location Is Hopelessly Wrong
#7Wouldn't they just look at the nearest star first? On the scale of light years, it's so close to us it's extremely obvious where it came from, and will be for many thousands of years. Just backtracking it's course should be enough for a much longer time after that. Sure, millions of years from now it might be harder to figure out, but we'll be long gone by then. They can come bother our descendents, whatever form they might take. For the period of time our civilization is likely to survive if aliens stumble upon it, they will be able to find us rather quickly.
Re: Voyager's 'Cosmic Map' of Earth's Location Is Hopelessly Wrong
#8Wouldn't they just look at the nearest star first? On the scale of light years, it's so close to us it's extremely obvious where it came from, and will be for many thousands of years. Just backtracking it's course should be enough for a much longer time after that. Sure, millions of years from now it might be harder to figure out, but we'll be long gone by then. They can come bother our descendents, whatever form the…
Depends on how far it goes and if any other gravitational forces act on it along the way.
Sometimes I wonder if the decision to turn Voyager around to produce the photo of the "pale blue dot" will someday end up fucking with aliens who couldn't imagine another species who would launch a deep space probe backwards.
Re: Voyager's 'Cosmic Map' of Earth's Location Is Hopelessly Wrong
#9I'm fine with that! [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Body_II:_Dark_Forest [1]: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Space/stephen-hawking-alien...
Yep, after reading the three body series I feel like I'm much more skeptical about sending out Earths location indiscriminately. Spoiler: One of the central tenets of this book is that the most logical course of action for any alien discovering another life form, is to destroy it immediately. The story is pretty coherent, but if anyone has references to any scientific/theoretical work on this I'd be very interested i…
'the most logical course of action for any alien discovering another life form, is to destroy it immediately'.
In that case i'd rather be destroyed than share a universe with such a species. I do not think the premise makes sense. It also makes no sense to compare it with the slaughter of native americans, since that has been done by apes in clothes.
Any interstellar spacefaring civilisation should be so advanced that it values construction over destruction.
Re: Voyager's 'Cosmic Map' of Earth's Location Is Hopelessly Wrong
#10Not to be anti-science, but it is worth taking into account that there are a lot of things we think we know now that may turn out to be wrong. Particularly things that are far away in space and time, where the points of data are few. Popular articles discuss the latest theories as "now we know this to be true." I'm thinking articles about details of the Dinosaurs or the size of distant planets. It may be right, but i…
That's not anti-science, that's the whole point of science. It's the willingness to incorporate new information. The current understanding is always understood to be based on currently available information. I'll take it over religion any day, which is: there is nothing more to be learned about our origin, nature, purpose and future, the founding documents do not get changed or updated as new information is acquired, we can only invent new excuses for the ever increasing incongruence.