Broadcasting from Deep Space, a Mysterious Series of Radio Signals

@Oldcontinenter It's a question of scale: Le Monde uses milliseconds, and the Times uses a day. I can't do the full sun-power conversion, but Google tells me that 24 hours equals 8.64 x 10^7 milliseconds. Extraordinary how a simple alteration of measurement scales can produce enormously different responses to the same figure... and how frightening!

yes. they are low energy bursts of radiation that emit more energy than the sun does in an entire day. my guess is if we were too close, think EMP. and the burnout of every electronic device on the planet. from computers and cell phones to electricity and light bulbs to car ignitions etc. technology would revert to middle ages. but that would be a good thing for the planet. No more carbon emissions. but no way to move food either. mass starvation, anarchy, the fight for food, canabalism. sci-fi authors estimate 75% of the population would easily die. some estimate up to 90%. if you live in or anywhere near a big city, no good. rural areas with farming have the best shot. if you are lucky enough to escape the city or suburbs and successfully get to an area with food, expect to be pressed into slavery. since most machinery would be inoperable and no one is going to give you food for nothing. and money will not be a viable currency, food and ammunition will be the new currency. and that's just the start! have a nice day!

@Ugly and Fat Git I believe the authors point is exactly that. Given the amount of energy in the bursts as well as the likely much fiercer conditions in which the bursts are created, we are lucky we don't live near the sources.

Lighten up. These are tough times in this speck of space.

@Meena Probably a wise decision.

@Paul hi. Your comment is not funny. Not because we should not mock Trump. We really should, all of us, with all our heart. However your attempt is weak, insipid and i think borrowed. Don't stop trying though. Just try harder.

@john johnson jr It was indeed borrowed from astronomer Frank Drake at Cornell University. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Drake

@Rich I didn't find the quote on that page but I remember a Calvin & Hobbes with the punchline (quoting by heart) 'the proof of extraterrestrial intelligence is that they've never come to visit us'.

You mean like radar?

Well, then they get a ping in, oh, two billion years. I would say relax.

@Truth Is True. Yes, nothing unusual about natural occurrences being exploited by life, from intelligent to single cells. They are nature's process of emergence in the Universe, driven by the fact that the universe started in a very low entropy state and is evolving to higher entropy states which drives complexity.

@a goldstein Entropy does not drive complexity, nor does it affect evolution. In fact, increasing entropy will eventually cause the heat death of the universe with the dissolution of all stable forms of matter.

@Rick Gage Of course along with " Death Star".

@Bob Lakeman Nope. Sirius is less than 10 light years away ... not 1.5 billion ;-)

@Bob Lakeman That would explain the repetition.

@Bill McGrath Astrobiology aka the study of extraterrestrial life is no more a science than is theology. Since there is no natural evidence of extraterrestrial life it is not science. It is science fiction and mythology. The only life as we know it exists on Earth past and present. And life as we know it on Earth has been evolving and expanding. Science uses natural data to explain natural phenomena using natural explanations. The scientific method uses double- blind controlled experimental tests to provide repeatable predictable results. We can hardly communicate with alien life aka non- human life on Earth as we know it. See " The Fermi Paradox" aka Where are they? and "The Drake Equation" aka Who, What and When are they?

@Bill McGrath I have enjoyed your peregrinations except for the first sentence. Your “what evolution deemed necessary to our survival ” skews in the direction of teleology. From wikipedia: “ . . . it is a common experience in pedagogy that a minimum of apparent teleology can be useful in thinking about and explaining Darwinian evolution even if there is no true teleology driving evolution. Thus it is easier to say that evolution "gave" wolves sharp canine teeth because those teeth "serve the purpose of" predation regardless of whether there is an underlying nonteleologic reality in which evolution is not an actor with intentions. In other words, because human cognition and learning often rely on the narrative structure of stories (with actors, goals, and proximal rather than distal causation), some minimal level of teleology might be recognized as useful or at least tolerable for practical purposes even by people who reject its cosmologic accuracy.” I side with those for whom no level of teleology should be tolerated and injected into the “story” of evolution as a narrative aid to comprehension. Comprehension of what? An alternative narrative? Tell it like it is. Let the readers and hearers engage in the struggle to comprehend exactly what has been postulated.

@D.S. That's fine with me as long as it doesn't bring its friends and plays Thin Lizzy at us.

@lowereastside These FRBs are, as the term implies, of very short duration, a few milliseconds on average (according to Wikipedia), which militates against their being attempts by aliens to communicate. After all, If I were trying to contact someone who I wasn't sure was home, I'd probably let the phone ring a little longer :-).

i am one of "those" people. we MUSTf find and develop ways to help the starving and sick people of our planet. The future is NOW!!

@Tanya Hoffman: The two endeavors are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps if we trimmed the huge military budget, we could feed, house, nurture, and educate more of our citizens today?

@Tanya Hoffman: Thank the gods, Tanya, that people like you are not in control.

One has to wonder what phenomena may exist that the human mind is incapable of perceiving.

Faraday could have perceived it. He was one of a kind and his understanding of the fields that fill the universe were more sophisticated than we know. It is unfortunate that he lacked the mathematical education to precisely describe them to us.

@Daniel K. Statnekov If humans make it into the vast reaches, its won't be via rocket fuel. That 90% of our brains we apparently don't use must be good for something we yet know nothing about.