NASA Is Quietly Funding a Hunt for Alien Megastructures | Hacker News Reader

NASA Is Quietly Funding a Hunt for Alien Megastructures

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103 pointselsewhen41 comments

The article focuses on megastructures for the clicks but it seems the actual project uses the more restrained term “technosignatures” (of which megastructures might be one, albeit a far-fetched one).

A more likely technosignature is the presence in a planetary atmosphere of a chemical that is produced by no known natural mechanism - and that of course would not automatically prove alien life, because we might just have overlooked a possible natural pathway to the production of that chemical.

Megastructures are probably less likely, yes, but should be a much more confident detection. Who knows all the chemical production networks possible in a planetary atmosphere. But there aren't many ways to make a star-sized perfect blackbody.

are they? why?

The particular grant highlighted in OP is for transiting megastructures in TESS light curves. I don't think the article was misleading.

>"Motivated by these discoveries, we are embarking on a project to quantify the frequency of anomalous fading events-- and hence occulting structures--among main sequence stars. Our objectives are two- fold: First, we will detect or put a stringent limit on the presence of transiting megastructures; second, we will assess the frequency of transiting minor bodies in planetary systems."

>"However, the proposed study will enable us to place the most stringent limits yet on the presence of large artificial structures orbiting stars in our Galaxy, and correspondingly on the presence of technologically advanced life."

https://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/viewrepositorydocument/...

Can you provide an example of such a synthetic chemical, that would be present in levels that would be detectable on Earth from across interstellar space? CFCs?

Isn't just elemental Oxygen enough, for example? I may be missing something but I think it's unstable in the presence of a huge variety of other elements/chemicals. Of course that could only signal life, at best, can't tell you if it's intelligent.

NASA's version of doing things quietly is pretty loud

https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/06/28/nasa-administrator-...

I honestly am cool with NASA getting lots more money but also seems clear that the beurocrats have realized the best way to secure more funding now is no longer to make a national security argument - but one involving overhyping the evidence of aliens.

Curiosity trumps fear.

Not sure if that strategy will work in the long-run but honestly I'll take whatever works.

It would be pretty crazy to detect some kind of megastructure whilst also knowing that there is probably no way we could ever communicate with them. At least not in any practical sense.

Imagine if we detect one heading in our general direction. :)

Nice, lots of new alien invasion movies on Netflix (just like the wave of pandemic-themed stuff now)!

I for one, would like to attend thie SETI Symposium , attendance at which is one of the items funded:

https://sites.psu.edu/setisymposium2021/

The last astronomy cast is also about technosignatures.

https://astronomycast.libsyn.com/ep-612-the-seti-renaissance

I hope we can one day identify intelligent life outside of Earth in my lifetime.

I'd settle for any life beyond Earth or intelligent life on Earth.

To quote Monty Python: "And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth."

> I hope we can one day identify intelligent life outside of Earth in my lifetime.

Discovery of a simple life would be a big deal too. Perhaps the whole notion of intellegence or even our own origins could as well be affected by such a discovery.

Simple life might be preferable, as it would be less likely to notice us and come annihilate us!

Or the other way around... Although it would be great for humanity.

Interstellar (non-carbon based) life will go straight for the nearest suitable (stable) black hole to setup a kugelblitz as it is the most efficient, which we might get (un?)lucky enough to detect with the JWT depending on how good the infrared emissions are managed + distance.

Brb looking up kugelblitz edit: :O

What if that's what subatomic particles actually are?

I don't understand what you are implying. After looking it up, a kugelblitz is a type of black hold. What does it mean to go to a black hole to set up a black hole?

https://web.archive.org/web/20151003080252/http://news.disco... Please note this page is about a decade old, many links do not work; mentions making a solar array with the area of Arizona for bootstrapping, but a Starshot approach with 3 satellites around the "natural" black hole for the first ergosphere superradiant scattering pump would be less work assuming a candidate is relatively close. Credits: https://blackholes.stardate.org/popculture/pop-imperial-eart...

Easier to understand video about this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulCdoCfw-bY

> In 1993, NASA famously killed a search program intended to find microwave signals that were artificial in origin. “That had a chilling effect for a couple decades,” said Steve Croft, a radio astronomer and leader of the Breakthrough Listen project at the Berkeley SETI Research Center.

yeah because it was pseudo-science.

Assuming we could see it. I'm not a physicist but I have read this book series called The Three Body Problem, in which we discover alien structures, but in the fourth dimension.

thanks for spoiling it! i was meaning to read it.

That’s hardly a spoiler

I'd definitely consider it one and would've dropped the book if someone had told me just when I started it.

The 4th dimension is used as more of a metaphor or minor plot point. The series has a much more valuable message.

Definitely still read it, that's not a spoiler. The implications of the Dark Forest are very pertinent to this sort of search for other life.

The three body problem is more magical realism than scientific really.

I am slowly getting the creeping sense that maybe there is something to all this.

Also, if they were looking for alien megastructure I would check the oceans first. Would seem far easier to go undetected at depth.

I don't think you understand quite how "mega" these structures are. There's not an ocean in the galaxy that is big enough to contain a dyson sphere.

You are correct.

Some perspective...

"Universe Size Comparison 3D"

https://youtu.be/i93Z7zljQ7I

> I am slowly getting the creeping sense that maybe there is something to all this.

By "all this", do you mean the recent Pentagon releases on UFOs/UAPs?

https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/183103

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