Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

4 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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
  4. 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?