Possible Radio Emission from Exoplanet Detected | Hacker News Reader

Possible Radio Emission from Exoplanet Detected

news.cornell.edu

199 pointsizhak84 comments

From a Jupiter-like gas giant type exoplanet, which generate radio emissions through entirely natural processes just like the gas giants in our own solar system.

The title is a tad more spectacular than the actual discovery.

I'd like to suggest that "suggesting" is a better word here.

Actually I read the title exactly as what the article described. In fact I wasn't going to read it at all -- "meh" -- until I realized there was a small chance that it might be about something interesting rather than natural.

Came into the comment section expecting a cold shower. Was not disappointed.

Nothing like the comment section to snap you back to reality.

I suppose... but often the top comment is wrong or mis-leading in some way: "the middle-brow dismissal" HN is famous for. I usually find the most enlightening commentary on HN a few replies down from the top comment where a true expert chimes in to show why the middle-brow dismissal is in fact incorrect and adds their own nuance to the conversation.

> "the middle-brow dismissal" HN is famous for.

Famous amongst what group?

The site guidelines and @dang suggest "shallow dismissal" is now the preferred term. Paul Graham, cofounder of YC explains in a comment, back when he still posted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920

I guess significance here is that if we can isolate radio signals from naturally-emitting planet, we potentially can isolate radio signals from artificially-emitting planet.

I was going to reply that it might be difficult to match the power of something like Jupiter's radio signals. However, it turns out that Jupiter's decametric radio emissions are only about the equivalent of a megawatt antenna[1]. The US air force already has a radar with a peak power of 32 megawatts[2]. So with sufficient motivation, in principle we or an alien civilization could certainly send regular signals like that.

[1] https://www.space.com/26419-jupiter-radio-waves-alien-life.h...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eglin_AFB_Site_C-6

Not only could we send those kinds of signals, we already have done it using the Arecibo Telescope (RIP), which h̶a̶s̶ had EIRPs ranging from 200 megawatts to 22,000,000 megawatts depending on the transmission frequency. In 1974, we beamed a short message to the Messier 13 globular cluster with a transmission power of just under half a megawatt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message

Converting the output of a narrow-beam transmitter to EIRP for comparison with radiation sources in the universe makes the assumption that the user of the transmitter knows where to point it.

This comment left me wondering: What's the astronomy equivalent of “in mice”?

Gotta be something like "(but it's probably not aliens)", right?

Could you use "non-biogenic" (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/biogenic) for a thing like radio emissions?

That still suggests a _machine race_ could have sent it.

We could define intelligent life as being any of a sapient species, regardless of physical composition. That's helps do away with only carbon-based lifeforms.

What would be the definition of sapience for a machine civilization?

Same as for humans. Or a hive mind, or some other type.

Which is?

Common dictionaries, such as Oxford, state:

Sapient 1. Wise, or attempting to appear wise. 2. Relating to the human species.

Where

1. wise is defined: Having or showing experience, knowledge, and good judgement. Hard to see how that would apply to a hypothetical hive or machine drone civilization with only a single ‘wise’ controller.

2. Clearly not applicable.

Sentience might be a better word.

Why wouldn't 1 work? Basically it's a species that is at least as intelligent as us and can carry out civilization, including scientific and technological progress. It may or may not be sentient as well, see Blindsight for example.

Perhaps "naturally occurring" would be more clear to the layman. Until proven otherwise.

"alien world"

> Scientists think they've detected radio emissions from an alien world

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/news/scientists-thin...

> This alien world could help us find Planet Nine in our own solar system

https://www.popsci.com/story/science/alien-planet-nine/

I'd be happy with "by mice".

yes, what is novel here is that the exoplanet was detected using radio (in other words the discovery of the planet is what is significant, not the signal)

The title is in an odd spot where, on the face, it is completely anodyne, and not at all misleading or “clickbait.” Yet even sensible readers (like me!) see “radio” and “exoplanet” in the same sentence and think “ALIENS!”

Very awkward spot for the science PR people writing this. It’s almost like it needs extra words to prevent people from adding

“Possible (But Definitely Non-Alien) Radio Emission From Exoplanet (Which Cannot Support Life) Detected”

"Natural Radio Emission" seems to clarify things just fine.

If that's a Natural Radio Emission, then what's a Nocturnal Transmission then?

Why the downvotes - it's an obvious reference to Charlie Farquharson's commentary on the moon missions. :-)

It’s a radio emission, not a radio transmission. That’s a key distinction that may be lost on a lay reader (or anyone not paying enough attention).

Astronomers, amateur astronomers, and astronomy enthusiasts all tend to be aware of the fact that radio is just another part of the spectrum we can use to look at the universe. It’s a strange quirk of our culture that the word radio carries connotations of technology and thus connotes intelligence.

> It’s a strange quirk of our culture that the word radio carries connotations of technology and thus connotes intelligence.

Counterpoint: "radio wave fart from exoplanet detected". No connotation of intelligence IMO

Though, perhaps, of biology.

Not quite as whack as the rash of headlines a while back referring to FRB as 'mysterious radio signals' from 'deep space'.

> anodyne

It's pretty rare for me to run into a (non-technical, niche) word I'm not at least somewhat familiar with, thanks!

anodyne (adjective): not likely to provoke dissent or offense; inoffensive, often deliberately so.

You're obviously not an Uncle Tupelo fan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZtdUkqhSgk

I used that a couple of weeks ago responding to a bland email from my state’s DOT completely ignoring the concerns I raised.

Possible is a sneaky word to use here, implying unbelievability.

First Exoplanet Detected by Naturally Occurring Radio Emission

Occasionally I'll see an headline making a marvelous claim about 'Gravity Waves'... something like 'shrimp synchronize reproduction to gravity waves'. I always read it as gravitational waves, and for a split second I think there was some revolutionary physics discovery. Of course, they're simply talking about waves driven by gravity... or, in other words, everyday normal waves in water and air.

The same thing happens all the time with pulsars. "Astronomers detect radio signal in space" and don't mention that the signal's frequency is similar to a pulsar

That's funny because as an astronomer the title is both very exciting and completely fair. We've known about long-wavelength radio emission from Jupiter for ages. Astronomers have been looking for the same thing in exoplanet systems probably since shortly after their discovery! But because they are so far away, the emission is faint and hard to detect. This is also very long wavelength radio (in the tens of megahertz) which is a difficult portion of the spectrum to work in.

I suppose it is less spectacular if one makes the immediate connection "radio <-> techno-signature", but that's unwarranted and not a fault of the press release or the author, in my opinion. Jupiter's auroral emissions are mainly caused by volcano's on Io, so it's not unrealistic to think we can learn a lot about planetary mass objects (the moons) from observations like these.

Comments like these are why I mostly only read the comments and headline.

Radio JOVE is a STEM project that explores the radio emission of our own Jupiter, which is very similar to what has been detected in Tau Boötes. It's a very fun backyard amateur radioastronomy project that's great for kids.

https://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Wow, that sent me down a short rabbit-hole of listening to Jupiter [0] [1] and other space radio emissions [2].

Makes me wonder if these sounds were ever remixed into music? Would certainly be an interesting concept along the lines of the German Space Night TV program.

[0] https://youtu.be/slE2i0O0pDY

[1] https://vimeo.com/173638603

[2] https://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/features/halloween_soun...

There is "The Space Project", a 2014 album of songs by various artists using "electromagnetic radiation fluctuations in the magnetosphere of the celestial bodies studied by the Voyager probes" [1]. I like Spiritualized's track on it [2].

[1] https://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Space-Project/release/56... [2] https://youtu.be/GksfQN1_LsM

There is a part of me who just thinks "pah - click bait".

But then there is another, better, part of me that thinks it is so awesome we live in a time when people can build a machine that listens to "sounds" made deep in a giant planet in another fricking solar system.

To the team who built that machine and shared it with us - thank you. nice one.

Is “signal” the correct word to use for naturally occurring radio bursts? I thought that word implied radio waves used to convey meaning.

I’ve seen many stretch the term over the years, but many in the scientific community know it’s watered down enough to mean “something was emitted”

Signal is the emission of interest, however it occurs. Noise is the other stuff. In common use though people mentally (and literally) drop the first word from "modulated signal" and seize upon signal. It's normal and writers should make an effort to use unmodulated or, probably better, natural in such descriptions. Emission isn't a bad word for this context, but it's still all encompassing and easy to mentally go the wrong direction when reading it.

Is not the signal in question modulated by the motion of the source, as most signals in astronomy are?

Probably, but I think the post you are responding to is talking about the sort of modulation that artificially alters a radio carrier wave in order to encode information.

The post I am responding to suggest calling that signal unmodulated, and I think that would be wrong.

It probably depends on the domain. For telescope people, a “signal” is anything other than noise and systematic error in your measurements.

I’d speculate that this terminology came from telephony or radio communications - even the term “noise” is a giveaway. But it has migrated into astronomical language in a slightly different way.

It seems that we expect an alien civilization, if it exists, to follow a similar discovery path as we did. As such we listen for radio signals as a way of communication, because that's what we are doing.

How likely is it for another civilization to follow the same path? Some of our breakthrough scientific advances happened by accident. What are the odds that we missed some big new technologies because we haven't happened upon the accident yet, even though it was right here all the time?

While your basic point stands, I have to point out that "wireless telegraphy", like many other inventions, was almost simultaneously invented on different sides of the Atlantic. There are many inventions which have American and European "inventors", because the news of one had not gotten across the Atlantic to the other before they invented it as well. Which suggests, that once an invention is possible, it is likely to be discovered, whether an accident is involved or not.

I think this is getting the causality backwards:

> As such we listen for radio signals as a way of communication, because that's what we are doing.

It’s not because we expect aliens to be using radio communication or to follow the same path we did. It’s more because electromagnetic radiation is the only thing we can reasonably detect. If the aliens are communicating with gravity waves somehow, our sensors are probably not good enough to determine it. And if it’s some new physics we haven’t discovered, how would we even know what to look for? EM waves are really the only good option we have right now.

That said, it is reasonable to assume that a technologically advanced civilization is using some fashion of electromagnetic devices, which therefore generate radio waves and could be detected.

But I don’t think anyone is claiming that every technologically advanced civilization will have a detectable radio signal. It’s just the best tool we have.

I can't see a good reason to assume an alien civilization would be industrial to begin with, whatever discovery path might lead one there.

And I don't even mean they could be underwater creatures etc., which is also a possibility.

Imagine Earth as we know it, inhabited by humans as we know them, but no fossil fuels (due to a different geological history), very few metal ores (making every metal as scarce as, say, platinum) - and you're stuck in an eternal stone age, possibly with more advanced social organization, but never getting beyond our ancient or medieval standards.

Just as likely for there to be no fossil fuels and no metal is for there to be vastly more fossil fuels and metals.

I don't see any reason why it's more likely for an alien civilisation to be suffering from a comparative lack of resources than it is for us to be suffering from a comparative lack of resources.

And if both types exist, we'd be more likely to hear from the ones that have resources than from the ones that don't.

That seems like an interesting plot for a story. Stonepunk? It seems a sufficiently advanced society could have Antikythera type computing mechanisms ground from stone. And extravagant "wood"-working artifacts shaped by sharp stone tools (obsidian single point turning tools for your lathe?). So you could have advanced looms for textiles, etc.. And then without metals you don't have electrical conduction, but what could you do with electrostatics? And telescope and microscope optics seem in the realm of possibilities. How much of our chemistry knowledge depends on metals? Could we have genetic engineering without metals? Interesting.

Children of Time touches on this in some interesting ways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel)

From the western culture point of view I'm sure it seems very weird to not have oil/metal, but you're describing numerous historical non-western cultures. Easter Island, Japan, etc.

> How likely is it for another civilization to follow the same path?

Maybe not likely. But for other paths, we don't know what to look for. Presumably, if there are technologically advanced alien species out there, some fraction of them followed a path involving radio signals. And that's what we know to look for.

Exactly. The human species mirrors its expectations and technological limits into the parameters it uses to conduct the searches for extraterrestrial species. Implicit guesses on the details of the alien species are done: for example, use of radio signals implicitly assumes the aliens prefer to use radio over lasers or some other technology.

Like the Ashen Lights (small glows on the unlit side) of Venus: these were theoreticized to be big fires used for agriculture or a form of celebration of the Venusian Emperor... Think about that for a second: a civilization on another planet would 1. use a slash-and-burn method of agriculture (why not hydroponics), and 2. would have a hierarchical society with an emperor (why not autonomous cells), and 3. require/facilitate celebrations of their leader(s) (why not leaderless), and 4. use possibly some evolved form of fire worship (why not water, why not nothing), and so on.

All these are Earth constructs. An alien race would likely not understand those concepts at all.

So, suppose we made contact, there would not be a common frame of reference at all, except by using mathematics, physics and chemistry and the like. Describing foundational things like numbers and carbon chemistry would be possible, but at some point that language would reach its limits. Anything abstract like "hate", or "love", or "exploring" would be impossible to describe.

Also, the technology levels of the two species would have to be close to each other. I mean, just try describing a transistor to a pet, or describing a cloud-based service to a person from the year 1700.

I'd say the chances of any kind of contact are very, very small, but still non-zero.

If you have any sort of electrical technology is hard not to produce some form of radio waves. We have to have regulations that limit the interference caused by our appliances.

If you’re producing radio anyway, it’s not a big leap to come up with a practical application.

Posted earlier today (theguardian.com version):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25464817

EDIT: Whoops, different radio emissions from a different place ! (but I'll leave this here because it's interesting anyway).

I am going to spoil this - it's not aliens. The gap between Occam's Razor explanations and THAT one is absolutely vast.

It's not aliens. It's never aliens.

Except when it is aliens.

> The signal is from the Tau Boötes system, which contains a binary star and an exoplanet.

So, different to the signals from Proxima Centauri?

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/dec/18/scientists-l...

Also, in addition to this being an emission not a transmission:

> “There remains some uncertainty that the detected radio signal is from the planet. The need for follow-up observations is critical,” he said.

So, in the terms used in everyday life, we do not (_c.f._ we do) have an indication that the signal is from the exoplanet.

A few years back, a researcher told me they were looking at when known exoplanet systems like Trappist have pairs that line up/eclipse with Earth. They’d then look for interplanet comms/laser signals.

Wonder how that’s turning out.

I'm still looking for intelligent life on this planet!

Just remember that you're standing on a planet, that's evolving, and revolving at 900 miles an hour...

Occam’s razor telling me this isn’t aliens :/

This is a first step for being able to distinguish natural from artificial radio emissions

It’s crazy that a radio emission could in theory and out of random luck be decoded into a coherent message, sent by no one. Very improbable though.

What would be a radio frequency that couldn't possibly be natural?

Not LGM sadly

LGP

Probably reruns of I Love L'ucy

Cut to the chase, have we found aliens?

No, we just found a new way to identify exo planets. Specifically large Jupiter like ones. Though feasibly the methodology could be used to identify other types of exo planets as well.

First, they really missed an opportunity to rick roll everyone with this article. (just kidding)

But seriously, this went way over my head. If anyone can explain this to me like I'm 5, that would be awesome, I'm really interested in the subject but lack any real knowledge of the science.

As charged particles fly past a planet, sometimes they whistle, and make other low frequency signals... the Earth does it, with a coil and an audio amplifier, if you live in a rural enough area, you can hear them.

These folks managed to pick up those types of signals, of a large planet orbiting a different star. I'm impressed that they were able to get that done.

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