Astronomers Release Enormous Database of Variable-Luminosity Celestial Objects

wisebabo writes "According to a Caltech news release, 'Astronomers from the California Institute of Technology and the University of Arizona have released the largest data set ever collected that documents the brightening and dimming of stars and other celestial objects—two hundred million in total. The night sky is filled with objects like asteroids that dash across the sky and others—like exploding stars and variable stars-that flash, dim, and brighten. ... Using the Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey, a project led by Caltech, the astronomers systematically scanned the heavens for these dynamic objects, producing an unprecedented data set that will allow scientists worldwide to pursue new research.' So, anybody going to write a program looking for artificial sequences? (primes, Fibonacci, integers.) Wouldn't a good way to attract interstellar attention 'cheaply' would be to put up some (very) big solar sails in orbit around a star to modulate (and maybe collect!) its output? With 'micro-transits' being a preferred way to find exoplanets, somebody looking could stumble across this."

Comments

aliens

[Janek Kozicki]

"...With 'micro-transits' being a preferred way to find exoplanets, somebody looking could stumble across this..."

sorry, but we want to hide from aliens as long as we don't have technology strong enough to win an eventual war with them. Evolution as a universal rule prefers stronger species. Of course we want to discover them first, that's why we are looking. But they are hiding, just like we should. Also you can go and read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiasco_(novel)

Re:aliens

[Samantha Wright]

Carl Sagan agreed with this; in Cosmos he pointed out that interstellar wars would be rare because the technology differences would generally amount to a matter of no contest. How do we know when we have technology strong enough, though, without a point of reference?

Re:aliens

[kubernet3s]

Wow, way to misrepresent Carl Sagan in a way deeply offensive to the ideals he stood for. If you listened to the WHOLE episode (and indeed, read the numerous articles, talks and books he was responsible for on the subject) you would know that the intent of that statement was that it is extremely unlikely that two species that come in contact would have anything that both were interested in, but that one had an abundance and the other a paucity of. He was also writing that in the context of the Cold War, during which the worst of all possible worlds was two equally powerful superpowers engaged in an intractable war.

In the highly unlikely event we were to come into contact with some species that both a) has the ability to travel at or near the speed of light (probably faster) and b) is in desperate need of some resource we possess, it is even more unlikely that they are simply waiting hundreds of years for some signal from a particularly loud race to start warming up the battleships: they probably have ways of finding us.

The problem with the jungle/colonization analog of alien contact is that space is not an ecosystem. While science fiction is full of species like the Zerg and the Borg and Tyranids and Xenomorphs that work by subsuming or preying on other species, but surely you must realize how staggeringly unlikely that is. The argument is always that we could never conceive of what's out there: if that's true, how can there be other species who not only have conceived of what's out there, but evolved specifically to take unique advantage of it? This is all besides the point that it is unlikely that FTL travel is even a physical possibility, let alone a feasible transport method for a species of conquerors or predators.

Data Needs Access API

[blueZhift]

As near as I can tell, there's no way to access the data programmatically. So there's no way to apply any data mining techniques to the publicly available data set. Hopefully this will change going forward as groups of scientists higher on the food chain request access to do more comprehensive studies.

Back at ya

[Caerdwyn]

So, if transits are a viable way of detecting habitable planets at very long distances... do we have a list of stars that we would be transit-visible to? (say, within an degree of the ecliptic) A good survey would be to examine those stars which might well be examining us back.