Astronomers may have found Aliens

[Raz]

Why do we think the governments will want us to not know?
I personally think it would help join our people together. We are all very similar after all and knowing there are other intelligent life forms out there will help us realise that, hopefully. It will eventually be known anyway as scientists of other countries learn of it. It's bound to be leaked.

I'm sure it will unite us, but likely because we'll trust them less than we trust each other.

 

[modo77]

Why would an alien civilisation go to all the trouble of encasing a star when they could just create Fusion which is the power of a sun.

The total power output from a star is astronomically higher than a Fusion Reactor. They don't produce the same amount of power as a star, just in the same way but far less.

 

[Deleted User 234324]

Unacknowledged was a pretty good documentary, some interesting things bought up. Problem is if governments of the world or at least secret entities within are holding back information and technologies that could transform the world, we will never really know.

 

[Rroff]

The total power output from a star is astronomically higher than a Fusion Reactor. They don't produce the same amount of power as a star, just in the same way but far less.

I've probably got the maths wrong but IIRC a solar array just 10km by 10km in space would provide the same power output as that expected from the first generation large scale fusion reactors.

 

[StriderX]

Need to clean up our space crap first before wasting time putting ultra expensive solar projects into space.

 

[edscdk]

Interesting and if its a true report i imagine seti will be giving this particular star its full attention.

The existance of a dyson sphere would be wonderful. Well assuming they are benevolent of course.... but its commonly assumed that a society advanced enough to construct one would most likely be non warlike, as most wars are about resources and being that advanced means you have access to nearly infinate energy anyway.

Time will tell i guess

most HUMAN wars...

aliens might not like other species and kill them.. like we would kill a fly and not care

 

[Malevolence]

Unacknowledged was a pretty good documentary, some interesting things bought up. Problem is if governments of the world or at least secret entities within are holding back information and technologies that could transform the world, we will never really know.

Hadn't heard of that. Looks interesting, will download and watch later tonight.

 

[b0redj0rd]

Hadn't heard of that. Looks interesting, will download and watch later tonight.

I watched it on the w/end, it was pretty interesting

 

[glenimp617]

Maybe the laws of the universe just don't allow objects to travel faster than light or tunnels to be created and an object to survive through them.

If this is the case then you can say goodbye to any kind of communication with other intelligent races.

Knowing the vastness of space I really think this is the case. I've no doubt there are other civilisations but it just seems inconceivable to make any sort of contact.

Then whatever made the universe really ballsed up, or did they

 

[Angilion]

Why would an alien civilisation go to all the trouble of encasing a star when they could just create Fusion which is the power of a sun.

I can think of 5 reasons off the top of my head.

1) It's the same type of process, but the scale is so different that it's effectively a different thing. The sun has an output in the region of 100,000,000,000,000,000 very high capacity power stations(*). The sun is not a particularly energetic star. There would be a practical limit to building power stations on any planet. You just couldn't fit a hundred million billion power stations on a planet.

2) There may be other limiting factors in building practical fusion power stations. Resources, waste. There will be some, probably including some radioactive waste. Not much, but a hundred million billion times not much could add up to a lot.

3) Living space. Part of the point of encasing a star is to create a habitable area far larger than the surface of a planet. A sphere around the sun at the same distance as Earth would have a surface area well over 500 million times the surface area of Earth. Enough for trillions of people to have acres of land each and still have planet-sized uninhabited nature reserves.

4) To do it. An advanced civilisation might well want a huge, difficult and inspiring project.

5) To enclose themselves. A civilisation might turn inward for various reasons.





* Not a joke or hyperbole. Estimated total output of the sun is in the region of 4x10^26W. 4x10^9W (4GW) would be a very high output for a power station. There aren't many that can output that much energy.