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ET Will Phone Home Using Neutrinos, Not Photons

Posted by timothy on from the speak-and-spell-is-cross-particle-compatible dept.

KentuckyFC writes "Neutrinos are better than photons for communicating across the galaxy. That's the conclusion of a group of US astronomers who say that the galaxy is filled with photons that make communications channels noisy whereas neutrino comms would be relatively noise free. Photons are also easily scattered and the centre of the galaxy blocks them entirely. That means any civilisation advanced enough to have started to colonise the galaxy would have to rely on neutrino communications. And the astronomers reckon that the next generation of neutrino detectors should be sensitive enough to pick up ET's chatter."

7 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. Still bound by the speed of light by Lord+Byron+II · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Any civilization that wants to communicate across the galaxy is going to use something (and I don't know what that something would be) other than a particle that can't travel faster than light. The Milky Way is about 100,000ly across, so the ping times from one side to the other would be 200,000 years - try playing Intergalactic Counter Strike over that.

    Neutrinos might be good for short distances (100ly), but then, you're less likely to encounter interference sources. Since photons are easier to emit and detect, they are the more likely choice.

    In summary: photons for short distances, since interference isn't a factor and nothing for long distances since lag time makes meaningful communication impossible.

    1. Re:Still bound by the speed of light by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The Milky Way is about 100,000ly across, so the ping times from one side to the other would be 200,000 years - try playing Intergalactic Counter Strike over that. You're assuming a being that senses time as we do. An alien creature might live for millions of years and generate the simplest thought in years. two hundred thousand years might be a blink, for them.

      The time from big bang to big crunch might be a "day" for them. Our entire civilization would be like a lightning flash. They'd consider carbon based civilizations as random events that cover entire galaxies in an instant and then fade to void by the next.

      If that's the case, I don't think we'd be much interested in their messages, though.
    2. Re:Still bound by the speed of light by sysusr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The time from big bang to big crunch might be a "day" for them. Our entire civilization would be like a lightning flash. Are you suggesting some sort of hyper-slow motion state (metabolism, perception etc)? If so, that would be an extreme natural disadvantage. They wouldn't even be able to keep up with the geological events on their home planet, let alone adapt to predators.

      Such a species cannot survive. Even a lack of natural predators wouldn't help: geologically active planets would take care of them.

      "Nature always finds a way."
      --
      \x72\x6D\x20\x2D\x72\x66
    3. Re:Still bound by the speed of light by Thanshin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Such a species cannot survive. Even a lack of natural predators wouldn't help: geologically active planets would take care of them. Such a species could be "big" enough as to not be affected by such measly matters.

      Such a species might live and sense the universe in several more dimensions than us. A single galaxy in a single three dimensional volume might be the smallest of it's body "cells".

      Planetary geological activity would bother them about as much as quark behavior bothers us. i.e.: They'd need much advancement to even be able to detect it.
  2. What about those from the sun? by molo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I thought there were billions of neutrinos coming from the Sun every second. Wouldn't that provide a lot of noise to drown out your signal?

    -molo

    --
    Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
    1. Re:What about those from the sun? by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's also billions of photons coming out of the Sun every second. Yet we still use light to communicate.

  3. Speed of Light != Useless by LakeSolon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are alot of posts saying "Well it's still not faster than the speed of light, so it's still useless for a pan-galactic civilization".

    If your two options are: A) communicate at the speed of light, or B) don't communicate...

    I think it's reasonable to assume you'd find some communication, no matter how slow, useful.

    We've gotten so accustomed to (what is to our senses) instantaneous communication it's easy to forget that empires existed across much of our globe when the fastest method of communication was a sailing ship.

    We've seen our 'world' shrink a great deal in the past few hundred years. Is it so hard to imagine it growing again?