Does anyone out there know how old the recorded files are that seti is analyzing. And I don't mean when were they recorded but rather how old is the data that was recorded?

ie: We look at the sky and see a star but the light we are seeing from the star is extremely old because it took so long to travel to earth.

Is seti analyzing data that occured hundreds, thousands, or millions of years ago?

Thanks guys!

jason

Does anyone out there know how old the recorded files are that seti is analyzing. And I don't mean when were they recorded but rather how old is the data that was recorded?

ie: We look at the sky and see a star but the light we are seeing from the star is extremely old because it took so long to travel to earth.

Is seti analyzing data that occured hundreds, thousands, or millions of years ago?

Thanks guys!

jason

It's kinda hard to tell, actually. ET uses a different date/time format in his/her transmissions that we haven'tt been able to decode yet.

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nem·e·sis (nĕm'ĭ-sĭs) pronunciation
n., pl. -ses (-sēz').

1. An opponent that cannot be beaten or overcome.

2. One that inflicts retribution or vengeance.

If you have the frequency of the signal (and seti listens to 1.42Ghz) you can surtenlty calculate speed of that signal.. dunno how but i am surten that you can.. and then if u have a distance to a star you can also calculate time..

edit: you would also need the power of the signal

edit2: i found this:
The speed of a radio signal is the same as that of the speed of light. Both travel at 299,792,458 meters per second. This is a very useful number since the length of any radio signal can be determined by dividing the speed of the signal by the frequency of the signal. Throughout amateur radio though, you'll see that the numbers in this and other calculations can and often are rounded to various positions to make it easier to remember the formulas. The results are close enough to ignore the differences

For example, let's calculate the length of a radio wave at 28.5 MHz. The formula is 300,000,000 / 28,500,000 = 10.526316 meters, or directly in MHz it would be 300 / 28.5. In order to calculate the answer in feet you could use either 984 / Frequency in MHz or a more accurate formula (the one I use) is 983.6 / Frequency in MHz. The results now are 984 / 28.5 = 34.526316 feet and 983.6 / 28.5 = 34.512281 feet. As you can see the results are very close.

To calculate the electrical length of the line you need to multiply the velocity factor of the line (available from the supplier of the line) by the free space length. For the length in feet, this is (983.6 / frequency in MHz) * velocity. For the length in meters, this is (299.8 / frequency in MHz) * velocity.

But you have a problem now, we didnt recived anything yet (so they say :D) so u dont have the distance... but probably it would be 7+ years old if not more...

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SpaceInvader!

If you have the frequency of the signal (and seti listens to 1.42Ghz) you can surtenlty calculate speed of that signal.. dunno how but i am surten that you can.. and then if u have a distance to a star you can also calculate time..

edit: you would also need the power of the signal

edit2: i found this:
The speed of a radio signal is the same as that of the speed of light. Both travel at 299,792,458 meters per second. This is a very useful number since the length of any radio signal can be determined by dividing the speed of the signal by the frequency of the signal. Throughout amateur radio though, you'll see that the numbers in this and other calculations can and often are rounded to various positions to make it easier to remember the formulas. The results are close enough to ignore the differences

For example, let's calculate the length of a radio wave at 28.5 MHz. The formula is 300,000,000 / 28,500,000 = 10.526316 meters, or directly in MHz it would be 300 / 28.5. In order to calculate the answer in feet you could use either 984 / Frequency in MHz or a more accurate formula (the one I use) is 983.6 / Frequency in MHz. The results now are 984 / 28.5 = 34.526316 feet and 983.6 / 28.5 = 34.512281 feet. As you can see the results are very close.

To calculate the electrical length of the line you need to multiply the velocity factor of the line (available from the supplier of the line) by the free space length. For the length in feet, this is (983.6 / frequency in MHz) * velocity. For the length in meters, this is (299.8 / frequency in MHz) * velocity.

But you have a problem now, we didnt recived anything yet (so they say :D) so u dont have the distance... but probably it would be 7+ years old if not more...

That is a good question. By the time their signal reaches us, they could already be extinct. Susan

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'No one can make you inferior without your consent.'
Eleanor Roosevelt.

Thanks space invader!

Jason

That is a good question. By the time their signal reaches us, they could already be extinct. Susan

They could be, but estimates are that the first signal we get would likely come from a civilization that's already hundreds of thousands, or millions of years old already. 2,000 years wouldn't mean much to them.

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That is a good question. By the time their signal reaches us, they could already be extinct. Susan

Not wishing to sound nasty, but by the time a signal reaches Earth, WE could be extinct!

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Not wishing to sound nasty, but by the time a signal reaches Earth, WE could be extinct!

Not if they sent it a long time ago.

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The farther away the source might be, the higher the possiblilty of an intelligent signal. This varies as the cube of the distance if one thinks that each volume has the same possiblilty of containing aliens. The farther away those aliens are, the more stringent is the requirement of a stronger signal that they make to reach Earth. It might be more kilowatts or better focus.

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Not wishing to sound nasty, but by the time a signal reaches Earth, WE could be extinct!

Not if they sent it a long time ago.

If they are not yet extinct, and we are still around when the signal arrives, how long would it take us to decode and reply?

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flaming balloons

Not wishing to sound nasty, but by the time a signal reaches Earth, WE could be extinct!

Not if they sent it a long time ago.

If they are not yet extinct, and we are still around when the signal arrives, how long would it take us to decode and reply?

I think that depends. If a signal is coming from, say, a hundred light years away, it would take a hundred light years to reach us. To reply to the signal, if and when we manage to decode it, it will take another hundred light years to get back to them. Radio waves will travel at the speed of light. However, the chances of another civilization being within a hundred light years of earth is probably very remote.

Susan.

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'No one can make you inferior without your consent.'
Eleanor Roosevelt.

Not wishing to sound nasty, but by the time a signal reaches Earth, WE could be extinct!

Not if they sent it a long time ago.

If they are not yet extinct, and we are still around when the signal arrives, how long would it take us to decode and reply?

I think that depends. If a signal is coming from, say, a hundred light years away, it would take a hundred light years to reach us. To reply to the signal, if and when we manage to decode it, it will take another hundred light years to get back to them. Radio waves will travel at the speed of light. However, the chances of another civilization being within a hundred light years of earth is probably very remote.

Susan.

So, since we are in no position to move nearer to them, the only way we could have a meaningful discussion with ET is if they are already racing towards us, closing the gap. Which is unlikely because they probably don't know where we are, even if they had the means of extremely fast space travel and invented it some time ago.

Doesn't look too good, does it?

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flaming balloons

Not wishing to sound nasty, but by the time a signal reaches Earth, WE could be extinct!

Not if they sent it a long time ago.

If they are not yet extinct, and we are still around when the signal arrives, how long would it take us to decode and reply?

I think that depends. If a signal is coming from, say, a hundred light years away, it would take a hundred light years to reach us. To reply to the signal, if and when we manage to decode it, it will take another hundred light years to get back to them. Radio waves will travel at the speed of light. However, the chances of another civilization being within a hundred light years of earth is probably very remote.

Susan.

So, since we are in no position to move nearer to them, the only way we could have a meaningful discussion with ET is if they are already racing towards us, closing the gap. Which is unlikely because they probably don't know where we are, even if they had the means of extremely fast space travel and invented it some time ago.

Doesn't look too good, does it?

Even it they knew where we were and they were travelling towards us, it would take them an enormous amount of energy and a very long time to get here. That is why I am sceptical that we are being visited by UFOs. However, there may be some hope for faster-than-light travel. Physicists have been talking recently about the possibility of 'wormholes' in space. This is where you can quite literally 'bend' space-time and thus get to where you want to go in a fraction of the amount of time. Nevertheless, even an advanced space-faring civilization might find this problematic since it would take an enormous amount of energy to open up one of these wormholes. They would have to harness energies on an enormous scale, but if physicists are right and wormholes exist, the idea is technically possible.
Susan.

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'No one can make you inferior without your consent.'
Eleanor Roosevelt.

Here's my dream scenario: we find a radio signal from space which is merely a marker to get our attention.

So then we train our Optical Seti recievers on it, lasers having the capacity of carrying huge amounts of data, and find the _real_ message, which would include Galactic Encyclopedias, terabytes of VIDEO showing what their civilization and home-world(s) are like, ect.

This doesn't require 2-way communication, only a repeating signal from the ETs, which would be both an intermittent radio-pulse, and occasional laserbeam to ping a few million stars.

How practical would a method like this be for the aliens? Anyone know?

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Here's my dream scenario: we find a radio signal from space which is merely a marker to get our attention.

So then we train our Optical Seti recievers on it, lasers having the capacity of carrying huge amounts of data, and find the _real_ message, which would include Galactic Encyclopedias, terabytes of VIDEO showing what their civilization and home-world(s) are like, ect.

This doesn't require 2-way communication, only a repeating signal from the ETs, which would be both an intermittent radio-pulse, and occasional laserbeam to ping a few million stars.

How practical would a method like this be for the aliens? Anyone know?

This sounds to me more like a possibility than actually meeting an alien, given the difficulties discussed.

It would be sad to know about them, but not to actually meet up with them. It'll be like knowing about dinosaurs, but with many more clues and info.

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flaming balloons