What would be the best signal to announce we are here?

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Profile Bob DeWoody
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Message 1469622 - Posted: 27 Jan 2014, 18:36:47 UTC

In another thread I mentioned the possibility that man made nuclear explosions might be a way to get ET's attention. I haven't been able to find anything in the way of a study regarding what the range of detection would be and how big the explosion would have to be. So would a nuclear detonation be detectable from a star system say 50 LY away? And would it be recognised as something other than a natural event.
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Message 1469638 - Posted: 27 Jan 2014, 19:06:28 UTC

The problem with explosions is that they are very short lived. A better signal are the continuous broadcast signals of ever increasing magnitude that we have been pumping out for the last hundred years or so. Being continuous they are easy to get a fix on, work out how far away the source is, and the state of technological development our planet is at.
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Message 1469653 - Posted: 27 Jan 2014, 19:51:43 UTC

A lot of what I have read and seen claims that our radio signals are so weak as to blend into the background noise within a light year or two. I was thinking that a blast might be an attention grabber and would be noticed even if not being looked for. We have enough nuclear material that blasts at regular intervals could be maintained for quite a while.
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Message 1469660 - Posted: 27 Jan 2014, 20:15:49 UTC - in response to Message 1469653.  

What about radioactive fallout? I was charged to measure the radioactivity of air at the Trieste University Institute of Physics during the Soviet nuclear testing in the early Sixties. The data were never made public.
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Message 1469777 - Posted: 28 Jan 2014, 1:34:28 UTC - in response to Message 1469660.  

What about radioactive fallout? I was charged to measure the radioactivity of air at the Trieste University Institute of Physics during the Soviet nuclear testing in the early Sixties. The data were never made public.
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That's why I proposed that these explosions should happen on the far side of the moon. No fallout on the earth.
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Message 1469825 - Posted: 28 Jan 2014, 6:25:03 UTC - in response to Message 1469777.  

A rather risky idea, also forbidden by international treatises. But haven't we exploded several nuclear weapons in the atmosphere? If They are watching us they should see them in a few years.
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Message 1469905 - Posted: 28 Jan 2014, 10:02:05 UTC

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Message 1470800 - Posted: 30 Jan 2014, 17:47:24 UTC

Just my 2c worth but methinks firing off a nuke or two, even from 50 ly away, is a pretty aggressive way of saying 'howdy-nieghbor'. :P
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Message 1470847 - Posted: 30 Jan 2014, 19:31:40 UTC

Aaaarrrgggghhh!!;)
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Message 1470955 - Posted: 31 Jan 2014, 0:39:35 UTC - in response to Message 1470847.  
Last modified: 31 Jan 2014, 0:45:19 UTC

Aaaarrrgggghhh!!;)

Is that yet again one of the last utterances of Agrajag as it yet again meets some demise?...

:-P


More seriously:

We are sending out a very powerful signal loud and clear that we are here for how we are so very obviously unnaturally rapidly polluting our atmosphere. That is also a signal that we are optically looking for to find ET for the exoplanets discovered by the Kepler mission... (Astrospectroscopy can detect the pollution in the atmosphere of exoplanets light years away...)


Keep searchin',
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Message 1470961 - Posted: 31 Jan 2014, 1:07:03 UTC
Last modified: 31 Jan 2014, 1:10:13 UTC

Astrospectroscopy can detect the pollution in the atmosphere of exoplanets light years away...)


I suspect it would be more fruitful to look for Oxygen, water and then maybe Nitrogen. Our "pollutants" are a tiny tiny part of our atmosphere unless you consider water vapor to be a pollutant. If we could, in fact, detect CO-2 it might signal that there is the possiblity of abundant plant life.
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Message 1471049 - Posted: 31 Jan 2014, 7:44:26 UTC

And global warming could be attributed to variations in the sun's output not to mention the possibility of long term natural cycles.

I wasn't proposing that we actually set off nuclear explosions on the far side of the moon as I am not convinced we should be attracting attention at all. But I really doubt that what we are doing to the planet would ever get noticed unless someone was actively looking for us.
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Message 1471149 - Posted: 31 Jan 2014, 14:51:55 UTC - in response to Message 1471049.  
Last modified: 31 Jan 2014, 14:52:37 UTC

And global warming could be attributed to variations in the sun's output not to mention the possibility of long term natural cycles. ...

Could be but isn't and was long ago shown not to be so. Far too small an effect for what we're seeing at present.

Which is precisely why such rapid change at present would "give the game away" to aliens looking at our atmospheric signature to show that there are non-natural events underway. That is, artificial pollution indicating industrialisation.

(As for the "can't be Man" delusion, that's one for the DENIER's thread.)


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Message 1472252 - Posted: 3 Feb 2014, 7:58:58 UTC

We are sending out a very powerful signal loud and clear


So no whispering after all albeit not with radio signals...
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Message 1472848 - Posted: 5 Feb 2014, 0:48:36 UTC - in response to Message 1472252.  

My guess is they already know we're here but too primitive in development to respond. I figure any civilization capable of traversing the stars are in the least hundreds of years ahead of us in technology.
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Message 1472855 - Posted: 5 Feb 2014, 1:09:30 UTC - in response to Message 1472252.  

We are sending out a very powerful signal loud and clear


We are not. How far out do you think our radar and TV could be heard by a civilization as advanced as we are. In a few years we will probably realize that there is no one close enough to pick this up.
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Message 1472857 - Posted: 5 Feb 2014, 1:11:05 UTC - in response to Message 1472848.  

My guess is they already know we're here but too primitive in development to respond.


If they knew we were here they could respond. As could we.
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Message 1472931 - Posted: 5 Feb 2014, 6:55:26 UTC

Welcome to the boards rmcturnan:)
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Message 1473788 - Posted: 7 Feb 2014, 18:04:09 UTC - in response to Message 1472848.  

I imagine any civilization capable of traversing the stars already know we are here. Whether they can or will contact us is the question I guess.
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Message 1473811 - Posted: 7 Feb 2014, 18:34:33 UTC - in response to Message 1473788.  

I imagine any civilization capable of traversing the stars already know we are here. Whether they can or will contact us is the question I guess.



If they have any human DNA in them, we would've been exterminated already...
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Message boards : SETI@home Science : What would be the best signal to announce we are here?


 
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