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We should build a solar lens telescope. By the time we're ready to use it, we'll have a bunch of candidates to point it at.
by mekdoonggi 2mo ago
We should build a solar lens telescope. By the time we're ready to use it, we'll have a bunch of candidates to point it at.
- sgt 2mo agoIn theory we can then get 100 meter resolution on alien worlds. That would be insane.
- mekdoonggi 2mo agoAccording to AI, an equivalent would be roughly when Google maps shows you 10mi/20km reference scale. Turning off the labels, aliens would probably assume that the world is naturally full of green stuff that is dealing with some strange grey infestation.
- HPsquared 2mo agoOn that scale, we really do look like mold.
- peddling-brink 2mo agoSpectral analysis at that resolution would be much more telling.
- dTal 2mo agoEven on that scale, major roads and agricultural grids are clearly visible. The mark of abstract intelligence is unmistakeable.
- somenameforme 2mo agoThis reminds of me canali : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canals#Interpretation_as_engineering_works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canals#Interpretation_...
- rurban 2mo agoWell, they would see the I-35 out of Houston, but that would show them no sign of intelligence. Just signs of corruption
- dTal 2mo agoHeh, your flip remark leads to an interesting observation: I think the most obvious signature of "abstract intelligence" is suboptimality. An alien would look at an agricultural grid and wonder, what possible natural process would divide something into squares rather than hexagons? Even without knowing what they are or how they form, it's hard to imagine anything that would prefer such a high energy configuration. Such stupidity implies a system oddly bounded in its ability to optimize, which implies a feeble biological brain trying to do something "on purpose" rather than a natural process.
- rurban 2mo agoEvery civil engineer would find non-square grids stupid and expensive. Biology and maths may find hexagons better, but everyone else not.
- stephenhuey 2mo agoThe most powerful observational tool in the universe would not show 35 anywhere near Houston.
- rurban 2mo agoYup, mixed it up with the I-10. That's the widest road/band on earth. Much easier to see than the Chinese wall. https://supercarblondie.com/widest-highway-in-the-world-houston-texas-26-lanes-katy-freeway/ https://supercarblondie.com/widest-highway-in-the-world-hous...
- embedding-shape 2mo agoI wonder if there are conscious ants and similar small infrastructure-builders running around on the ground with the exact same ideas. "Of course the big-beings-in-the-sky recognize our tracks here are major roads and agricultural areas, they must understand we're intelligent"
- dudinax 2mo agoMaybe we do
- andrewflnr 2mo ago> aliens would probably assume that the world is naturally full of green stuff that is dealing with some strange grey infestation. I think they would draw the correct conclusion, actually. I know it's popular to compare humans to mold or cancer or whatever these days, but this kind of thing is both unrealistic and insulting to the aliens, who by the definition of the scenario are at least as smart as we are, quite probably more.
- hparadiz 2mo agoOur nighttime view of the planet has dramatically changed in the past 100 years and is increasing. They would instantly see us using electricity and could possibly see our satellites.
- hansmayer 2mo ago[dead]
- mmooss 2mo ago> According to AI But what is the actual source?
- biggc 2mo agoTurning off what labels?
- jcims 2mo agoThe wild thing is that, if I understand it correctly, if you were floating in a spacesuit at the same spot you'd also see that resolution (likely highly distorted) with the naked eye.
- JumpCrisscross 2mo ago> if you were floating in a spacesuit at the same spot you'd also see that resolution (likely highly distorted) with the naked eye …would you? The lensing would occur right at the apparent surface of the sun.
- jcims 2mo agoYou would still need the sun shield in place obv.
- JumpCrisscross 2mo agoI'm genuinely curious for someone less lazy than I to do the trigonometry. My gut feeling is these would be tiny apparitions on the edge of the disc. Not visible to the naked eye, even with a shield.
- fc417fc802 2mo agoSimilar to using everyday objects as pinhole cameras. At certain specific distances and angles my blinds offer magnification of small bits of the trees outside.
- myrmidon 2mo agoThere is no "building" such a thing. All we could do right now is send the "telescope probe" >500AU away, on the opposite side of the sun from the observation target, then hope it still works 80 years later or so when it gets there. Edit: My point is that you can't "build" such a thing and later point it somewhere-- you have to fly the camera part of the "telescope" about 3 times as far as voyager 1 went, exactly opposite of your observation target, and it is not gonna stay there for too long either. As long as we improve rapidly at both drone-building and exoplanet target selection, it is not really gonna be worthwhile because both the drone hardware and the target will be hopelessly obsolete before we even get halfway to the observation point.
- kurthr 2mo agoWell, there is a way to do it slowly, the probe(s) just need to be in a 500AU circular orbit. At that distance power and thrust are an issue, and RTGs seem like a better choice than solar. Certainly, takes longer to get to orbit than fly through a point for a pic, but you would get a lot more pics.
- myrmidon 2mo agoFirst: Orbital period out there is over 10000 years. And if you circularize (which is expensive to do in delta-v), you minimize the time window you have for observation (because you're basically pointing your speed vector straight to outside of your observation cone).
- cyberax 2mo agoThe orbital velocity at this distance is around 1 km/s, so you can fairly trivially (compared to anything else) zero it out. Then you can just hover in place, the solar gravity acceleration at this range is in _microns_ per second squared. For all intents and purposes, you'll be in the interstellar space.
- hparadiz 2mo agoIn order to get something there fast enough it would be traveling out very fast. Getting something there to orbit I think is not realistic for us any time soon.
- PxldLtd 2mo agoThere's a project that's going well from NASA for this. Still a moonshot but they've progressed through the early stages well so far. https://www.nasa.gov/general/direct-multipixel-imaging-and-spectroscopy-of-an-exoplanet-with-a-solar-gravitational-lens-mission/ https://www.nasa.gov/general/direct-multipixel-imaging-and-s...
- echelon 2mo agoI wonder about all the extraterrestrial AI swarms that have already imaged earth. Surely it has happened. They must have all spotted our planet millions of years ago and must be watching us with a continuous high-resolution feed. They've seen our dinosaurs. Their interest will really be piqued when they finally see us invent electricity, though that might be some time in the future for them. Perhaps even gravitational lensing is primitive to them. Perhaps they're able to break and manipulate physics and peer directly into our light cone, breaking the speed of light. Perhaps through direct wormholes they're already here - computronium in the very oxygen atoms that surround us. In rock silicates, in the air you breathe, in your hemes, in your brain. Calculating. But perhaps we're the only intelligent species in the entire universe. That is also a possibility. Some big names in astrophysics, such as David Kipping, suggest strongly that we should not rule out that hypothesis. I find his suggestions haunting and beautiful at the same time. You need to watch his videos, and this is a good start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqEmYU8Y_rI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqEmYU8Y_rI And finally, it may be that we're all just a historical simulation. Or maybe that's ascribing too much importance to ourselves. Maybe we're just a slop simulation on some AI's plaything, existing for no reason at all. Background NPCs with self-importance, ephemeral existences. But procedural generation at scale isn't really all too different from the laws of the physical universe itself. The scale of the universe fills me with awe. Every time I think about it, my worries about random algo-rage and clickbait fades away to nothing. It deeply contextualizes our short time here.
- imjonse 2mo ago>But perhaps we're the only intelligent species in the entire universe. That is also a possibility. Some big names in astrophysics, such as David Kipping, suggest strongly that we should not rule out that hypothesis They may be planted by alien AI to lull us into false sense of security.
- jvanderbot 2mo agoA kilometer scale telescope contract would exercise all the right pipelines for massive orbital buildout like in-situ assembly, multi-lift cadences, and big-old infra. And it'd look cool as hell in the night sky during assembly.
- dantillberg 2mo agoAn even more ridiculous dream of mine: I hope that aliens build a similarly amazing telescope, point it at Earth, and share the images with us, so that we can _see_ our Earth in the distant past.
- stronglikedan 2mo ago> I hope that aliens build a similarly amazing telescope I hope they did that eons ago so that I have a chance to see those images in my lifetime!
- deadbabe 2mo agoI hope they picked up dinosaurs and bred them. And maybe bring them back home! Even though our atmosphere is no longer oxygen dense enough.
- BuyMyBitcoins 2mo agoI was going to make a joke about the aliens returning and presenting us with a bunch of birds. But that got me thinking, if an intelligence goes around collecting species, how would they keep their specimen populations from evolving? How could they possibly keep so many specimens alive over the eons? Perhaps their strategy would be to take a vast amount of genetic samples and preserve those species as data. Rather than abduct dozens of T-Rexes for some zoo exhibit, they take the genomes from tens of thousands of T-Rexes and make a population snapshot. After they depart from Earth they could clone or create as many as they want, as needed.
- Maxamillion96 2mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOLIMAN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOLIMAN https://toliman.space/ https://toliman.space/ They’re building one for stars within 10 parsecs of the sun ( and more specifically for Alpha Centauri) which should launch in the next year
- dleeftink 2mo agoAlternative to resolving an image via Einstein ring lensing?
- thangalin 2mo agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQFqDKRAROI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQFqDKRAROI
- somedude89897 2mo agoAn alternative is to use Earth's atmosphere for imaging exoplanets: https://www.snexplores.org/article/idea-would-turn-earth-giant-space-telescope https://www.snexplores.org/article/idea-would-turn-earth-gia... I started a new thread for further discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48953907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48953907
- ErigmolCt 2mo agoYeps. The target-selection problem will likely solve itself long before the engineering does