←back to thread

“Most promising signs yet” of alien life on a planet beyond our Solar System

(www.skyatnightmagazine.com)
417 points fuidani | 2 comments | 17 Apr 25 08:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.433s | source
Show context
seanhunter ◴[17 Apr 25 08:59 UTC] No.43714467[source]▶
Firstly that is completely badass science. The idea that you can use observations to detect the chemical composition of an exoplanet millions of kilometres away is an absolute triumph of the work of thousands of people over hundreds of years. Really amazing and deeply humbling to me.

Secondly, my prior was always that life existed outside of earth. It just seems so unlikely that we are somehow that special. If life developed here I always felt it overwhelmingly likely that it developed elsewhere too given how incredibly unfathomably vast the universe is.

replies(14): >>43714565 #>>43714577 #>>43714584 #>>43714631 #>>43714656 #>>43714773 #>>43714830 #>>43714875 #>>43714914 #>>43714940 #>>43714971 #>>43715045 #>>43717003 #>>43717397 #
ta8645 ◴[17 Apr 25 09:20 UTC] No.43714565[source]▶
If life is very common in the universe, then that is probably bad news for us. It means that civilizations should exist that are millions of years more technologically advanced than us; and should be leaving telltale signatures across the sky that we'd likely have detected by now. And the absence of those signs would be relatively strong evidence that life, while common, isn't long-lived. Suggesting that our demise too, will come before too long.

If, on the other hand, life is relatively rare, or we're the sole example, our future can't be statistically estimated that way.

replies(34): >>43714604 #>>43714608 #>>43714615 #>>43714618 #>>43714624 #>>43714625 #>>43714636 #>>43714650 #>>43714691 #>>43714706 #>>43714729 #>>43714760 #>>43714766 #>>43714781 #>>43714825 #>>43714839 #>>43714844 #>>43714975 #>>43714991 #>>43715000 #>>43715063 #>>43715072 #>>43715084 #>>43715118 #>>43715227 #>>43715286 #>>43715299 #>>43715350 #>>43716046 #>>43716710 #>>43716759 #>>43717852 #>>43726399 #>>43727782 #
ivan_gammel ◴[17 Apr 25 09:44 UTC] No.43714706[source]▶
> And the absence of those signs would be relatively strong evidence that life, while common, isn't long-lived.

If dark forest theory is right, alien civilizations may stay undetectable by hiding biological signatures of their worlds.

replies(3): >>43714779 #>>43714785 #>>43714793 #
vladimirralev ◴[17 Apr 25 09:58 UTC] No.43714785[source]▶
Dark forest theory is wrong. Staying undetectable is always inferior to both staying undetectable and safely deploying varyingly detectable decoy targets at safe distance to probe the situation and gather intelligence.
replies(1): >>43714908 #
1. ivan_gammel ◴[17 Apr 25 10:19 UTC] No.43714908[source]▶
Deploying decoy target requires more advanced technology (space travel) than hiding the signature (we may be able to do it long before we reach another star). I don’t think this is a good argument. Let’s say, some civilization decides to invest in decoy. It needs to shine brightly, the energy footprint is huge, a lot of work has to be done to transform the entire system. Then what? If there’s a hostile player, capable of destruction, they research and destroy the target, and start surveying the neighborhood. You cannot just build a decoy on another end of the galaxy, right? The further you have it, the more complicated is the task. And then you can only hope that the time left will be enough to collect enough energy (even if you have the tech) for defense.
replies(1): >>43716047 #
2. vladimirralev ◴[17 Apr 25 12:49 UTC] No.43716047[source]▶
Dark forest theory is about very advanced civilisations not engaging with anything around them. Limited resources are not an issue in this case. You can easily just do everything in parallel with AI or other automated control system, using stars as energy sources, including spawning whole decoy civilisations at different stages of development. Because we see so many stars we know nobody is running out of energy yet.