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Mystery Intergalactic Radio Bursts Detected

Posted by timothy on from the fireworks-duh dept.

astroengine writes "Astronomers were on a celestial fishing expedition for pulsing neutron stars and other radio bursts when they found something unexpected in archived sky sweeps conducted by the Parkes radio telescope in New South Wales, Australia. The powerful signal, which lasted for just milliseconds, could have been a fluke, but then the team found three more equally energetic transient flashes all far removed from the galactic plane and coming from different points in the sky. Astronomers are at a loss to explain what these flashes are — they could be a common astrophysical phenomenon that has only just been detected as our radio antennae have become sensitive enough, or they could be very rare and totally new phenomenon that, so far, defies explanation."

50 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. First post by PPH · · Score: 5, Funny

    And perhaps the last when the alien invasion force, of which we observed the launch, reaches earth.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:First post by auric_dude · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Good morning. Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world, and you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. Mankind, that word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences any more. We will be united in our common interest. Perhaps it's fate that today is the 4th of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution, but from annihilation. We're fighting for our right to live, to existand should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice, 'We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on, we're going to survive.' Today we celebrate our independence day!" President Thomas Whitmore July 4th, 1996

    2. Re:First post by PPH · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Oh, and you aliens. Your browsers have a back door for which we discovered a zero day exploit. You should have given the adoption of IE some careful thought."

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    3. Re:First post by turgid · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yes, those pinko-commie left-wing nutjob foreigner-appeasing presidents are alien magnets! And they're in league with the 12-foot shape-shifting blood-drinking lizards who are from Zeta Reticuli and controlled by Phil the Greek from the panel behind Liz's throne.

      --
      Stick Men
    4. Re:First post by auric_dude · · Score: 2

      I'd back Ellen Ripley against an alien any day.

    5. Re:First post by Beardo+the+Bearded · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Two possibilities exist -- either we are alone in the universe or we are not. I am unsure which is more terrifying."

      --

      ---
      ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
    6. Re:First post by Culture20 · · Score: 2

      Don't worry, she sleeps above the covers.

    7. Re:First post by KingMotley · · Score: 2

      Friggin teenage aliens playing with their pocket radio bursters trying to blind galactic telescopes.

    8. Re:First post by allcoolnameswheretak · · Score: 2

      That movie sucks monkeyballs in space.

    9. Re:First post by anubi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have often pondered this as well... if there are another civilization out there. Advanced enough to build interstellar transport. Would they by their advanced technology be benevolent?

      Or would they be desperately looking for any habitable planet that had the capacity to support life?

      Would they consider us as we would consider finding a large land mass on earth, inhabited by roaches and rodents?

      From what I can tell, our Earth is a veritable jewel in the vastness of space. Our water is abundant, yet we have land, a stable orbit, a stable Sun. And a rich assortment of mineral elements. Its something any entity would greatly treasure. For now, its ours because "they" do not know it exists. If "they" knew about it, would they claim it was theirs?

      I feel if we are not alone, just the sheer laws of time and physics is all that separates us from other forces which could take everything we know away. I have a hard time thinking that if we are not alone in this universe, we are the most advanced. We would be in a poor position to wage any sort of war against those who have developed interstellar travel, as their ability to direct energy obviously is greater than ours, and directed energy is what wins wars.

      So far, I have seen little to suggest the existence of another species out there, but lack of evidence is not evidence they do not exist. From a cockroach's point of view, I probably do not exist either. Its only been within my generation that electromagnetism has been understood to a point we can use it as a communications medium. I have no idea what other technologies are out there, as of yet undiscovered, and no knowledge whatsoever of their existence.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]

    10. Re:First post by Ghaoth · · Score: 3, Insightful

      We already have a plan for any aliens that come to to planet Earth....Battleship..and Rihanna will save us. Whilst I am happy to search for alien life passively (observation), I am not so sure about doing it actively (big transmitters). Actively searching is like tracer bullets....they work both ways. ALL the life we have known on this planet (human, animal and plant) is powered by a need to survive and that usually means dominating other life. Would alien life be any different?

      --
      Nos Morituri te salutamus
    11. Re:First post by cats-paw · · Score: 2

      a civilization capable of interstellar travel is almost certainly capacble of terraforming, or I guess it would be xenoforming.

      I hardly think they would come all this way to raid our puny little planet.

      they would able to extract necessary resources from their own, or adjacent solar systems.

      --
      Absolute statements are never true
    12. Re:First post by Ihlosi · · Score: 2
      I have often pondered this as well... if there are another civilization out there. Advanced enough to build interstellar transport. Would they by their advanced technology be benevolent?

      Or would they be desperately looking for any habitable planet that had the capacity to support life?

      If they're advanced enough to build interstellar transport, they should have become used to living in space.

      From what I can tell, our Earth is a veritable jewel in the vastness of space. Our water is abundant, yet we have land, a stable orbit, a stable Sun. And a rich assortment of mineral elements.

      Water is abundant in the universe. And earth is nothing special in terms of mineral composition. Additionally, all of Earths mineral abundance is stuck in a nasty gravity well.

      I don't think the aliens, even if they're looking for resources, would bother coming to Earth. They'll probably strip-mine the entire solar system without ever bothering with those four specks of dust closest to the sun.

  2. War! by JWSmythe · · Score: 5, Funny

        The intergalactic war is getting closer. We can hear the explosions now. It's only a matter of time before they get here. It's a good thing our space program has done so well, and we've started colonizing other planets, otherwise our species would be lost forever.

        Oh .. fuck .. We don't have a space program, only a high altitude orbital flight program. Well, it's been nice knowing you all.

    --
    Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    1. Re:War! by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Funny

      why would they bother with Earth ? Deep gravity well, close to the sun and plagued with solar flares, full of microbes ...

      'Cause free-range brains taste better.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    2. Re:War! by JWSmythe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Humans make a great slave labor force. Well, the ones that aren't served.

      Where else in this part of the galaxy can you pick up 7.1 billion slaves, who will willingly work for slips of paper representing the idea of an exchange for goods and services? That, and they reproduce so readily, culling 50% of the population, their numbers will return in just a couple decades.

      There's so many of them, you could have them build monuments to your memory. You can have them stack stones. You could even have them do it in the desert, and they'll not only do it, but they'll admire them as one of their greatest feats.

      Is the trip too long? You could pick up just a seed population of say 1000, and end up with millions of obedient subjects when you deliver them. Nothing is better than a cargo that grows during shipment.

      The trick to their obedience is to tell them that they have free will, but make them worship and obey you under threat of perpetual torment. Most of those fools will believe anything. Just watch out for the atheists. They'll see right through most of those scams, and try to take over your ship. Make up something about an occupying evil, and the brainwashed masses will turn against them.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    3. Re:War! by Kjella · · Score: 2

      Colonizing Mars to protect against interstellar war would be like having your safe house on your patio. As for colonizing other planets we haven't got the technology for that any more than you could go to the moon with a horse carriage, just adding more horses won't help. It would be interesting to get started but I except a Mars colony to be dependent on Earth for centuries.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:War! by JWSmythe · · Score: 2

      If we had continued working towards colonizing the moon and Mars, our technology would have grown better to meet those goals.

      The horse carriage would have never grown into the horseless carriage, and finally the modern automobile, if we all lived together on a 2 square mile island. There's no reason to drive 150mph, if it would shorten your trip to under 1 minute.

      If there were regular commuter flights from Earth to Mars, you can be sure we'd have improved. Look at the difference between a Model 14 Benoist and the Concorde, Airbus A380, or Boeing 787.

      The demand drives innovation. Over the last century, we redefined the demand from crossing a small body of water faster, to being able to fly around the world faster.

      We want to get from Point A to Point B in something bigger, faster, and cheaper. The Concorde won on the faster, but died because it was anything but cheaper. That, unfortunately, is the fate of suborbital aircraft.

      When we redefine Point A and Point B to be Earth to another planet, we'll find better ways to do it. When that is extended out to other stars, our technology will grow even more.

      As you said, our space technology isn't much more than a horse in carriage. Without a goal and a reason to do it, it will never become a reality. We're all one planetary ELE away from being the last of our species. We didn't even know about the meteor that hit Russia, until it came down, damaging 7,200 buildings, and injuring almost 1,500 people. They're considered too small... Imagine the damage from a few of these, if they made impact on more populated areas.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    5. Re:War! by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 3, Funny

      Clearly, Pluto.

      Oh, is it a planet again this week?

    6. Re:War! by RubberDogBone · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There are generally two reasons anything would want to attack Earth: 1) we're a threat. 2) we have resources not more easily obtained elsewhere

      For the first point, we are a threat to nothing and noone. Our weapons are simple and not very powerful. They are also very short-ranged and we are tremendously preoccupied with killing each other. We're not externally dangerous and unlikely to become so any time soon. We have no ability to wage war in space, much less across any sort of stellar distances. We possess exactly zero capability to use wormholes, warps, time travel, or other exotic ways to move the human initiative anywhere else.

      For the second point, essentially all the elements and minerals found on Earth can also be found elsewhere, where there might not be so many humans in the way. What weapons we do have would make an invasion troublesome and needlessly complicated. Suppose aliens need water? No need to come all the way to Earth to invade when you can harvest a few Oort comets and you're done. Earth would never even notice and couldn't object even if it wanted to. But in practice, any advanced space-faring species would have probably figured out how to manufacture resources when needed, so they may have even less need to harvest anything.

      A lot of scifi is bogged down with the concept of aliens needing something from Earth, but this concept is mostly not plausible. Water is everywhere. Minerals are everywhere. No, they don't even need to eat us. If you can cross space by whatever method, you have probably figured out food or evolved or engineered yourselves beyond the need to eat constantly like humans do.

      Really, the only reasons to bother with Earth would be to obtain samples, to observe what's happening, or to manipulate the planet or it's contents (people, animals, resources) in some manner. The classic concepts of an invasion force and human extermination don't fit with either of those plans.

      --
      Sig for hire.
    7. Re:War! by jbmartin6 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Humans make a great slave labor force.

      No they don't. They are dirty, fractious, rebellious, and a zillion other flaws. Robots are far more useful and you don't have to travel light years to get them.

      --
      This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
    8. Re:War! by brickmack · · Score: 2

      Nothing. The idea is more of "get a few thousand people and as much information as possible to mars". A few thousand people wouldn't be all that difficult to transport (compared to billions, at least) And would be enough to carry on humanity without too many genetic issues.

    9. Re:War! by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 2

      What about real estate? Perhaps habitable worlds (in the goldilocks zone, spinning core, geologically stable, etc) are rare, and if an alien species would find our gravity and air tolerable, then this world could be of incredible value to them. Even if we haven't exactly left it in pristine condition.

      As for threats, we really can't assume that a spacefaring race would be so far ahead of us as to find us no threat to them. Perhaps it took their civilisation a few millenia to go from the beginnings of industrialisation to the space/information age, in which case they might well fear a species that did this in a century or two. Or they know that we, a rather warlike species, are likely to soon discover the trick to interstellar travel. They might not want us around for all manner of reasons.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    10. Re:War! by lightknight · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Me thinks you are boxing possible alien lifeforms in too small a probability. For all you know, those could be entire solar systems being converted to raw energy, to fuel interstellar drives, of a giant galactic war machine.

      While the universe is, IMHO, probably filled with many fascinating and enlightened lifeforms...there are also just as many unenlightened and terrifying lifeforms out there. There may be energy lifeforms, plasma lifeforms, etc. of all shapes and sizes whom you can learn from, live with, and so on; and there are, perhaps, others for whom slavery, conquest, insanity, and raw greed are nonnegotiable. The question you need to really roll around in your head is: has mankind been visited by any of these enlightened types, and if so, how did that reception go? Were they mocked, slain, beaten, enslaved? If so, when a real terror shows up, it is doubtful that those peoples will send any kind of aid to mankind. If you have encountered one alien race, it would be foolish to believe that there were not many more.

      Then again, mankind might get lucky. Someone might see the potential of removing this race from destruction's path, despite previous actions. But if the NSA and friends...WWII and human experimentation....are anything to go by, perhaps destruction might not be bad thing for the human race, right? Does the Universe need another race of people who see the conquest of the heavens as a form of 'Manifest Destiny'? Who think being peaceful is being weak? Surely the hundreds of millions of other races will certainly be okay with mankind trying to create new conflicts./s And of course, military authoritarianism...in light of races possibly capable of bending space and time itself, would really go over well; such obtuse proclamations, deceit, and other actions will, no doubt, keep mankind locked in the same unhappy spiral that, if my eyes are receiving valid data, threatens to destroy mankind time and time again.

      I wonder, if any of those lifeforms visit here, what they will find. If the genomic data I've come across is correct, one more major war, and humanity will not have to worry about aliens; their descendents will be so hopelessly dependent on various machines and surgeries for life support, due to genetic illnesses, that in time, they may become extinct. A pity, since there are, I would think, many lifeforms in the galaxy for whom the simple analysis of the human genome and repair of its flaws (the result of inbreeding) might be as easy to fix as placing a band-aid on a small child's scraped knee. But given the paranoia of government as of late, and general economic malaise...well, as I said, who knows what anyone will find when they get here.

      --
      I am John Hurt.
    11. Re:War! by lightknight · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Or Earth may simply be a refueling point between points of interest. I imagine that aliens of some advanced races will have discovered an asymmetric process for creating anti-matter, or something like that; at which point, places like this solar system might just be the equivalent of a gas station. Whether they decide to fuel up from a gas giant, such as Neptune, or from a planet like Earth, may not be much of a decision, especially if they aren't looking for life, have no experience with lifeforms of this design, or have detected lifeforms and simply wish to avoid contact.

      Or Earth may be a target of some consequence. Think about it: what if humanity does get off this rock, and pisses off the wrong people? They may decide, rather than fighting a war (with weapons, and so on, that humans excel at), to visit the Earth's immediate past, and introduce a virus that will render them incapable of posing a problem in the future; or they may just drop a black hole on the planet itself. Or mankind may find itself to be the enemy: some group of exo-haters decide to travel back in time to 'make sure those aliens never have a chance to set foot on this planet'; they sprinkle the right information, to the right groups, to ensure that first contact results in a very bad impression; possibly taking up positions in the military / other places where they can use their influence, quietly, to achieve their ends. Perhaps those aliens are being scapegoated for bad policy decisions, or perhaps they are simply a victim of 'they took our jobs!' Or even some, I don't know, environmentalists, who have seen the future, and think it should be greener.

      Heck, there may even be the equivalent of alien socialites...people who just like stopping by, having a little fun, then moving on.

      There are many, many reasons that Earth may or may not be on someone's roadmap, by intent or by accident. But I think we all know that if one of them shows up here, chances are the military will see them as a threat, and either try to pump them for information ("Tell us how to build a warp drive!"), or even for propaganda (if politicians get involved). Do you disagree? Does anyone disagree? Does anyone, at all, think that for a not small number of nations, first contact might be a little 'rough' for humanity? And there in lies the sadness -> denied contact for lack of maturation, because of some fear that others have come to enslave, or do harm, or what have you; denied contact, because humanity's own fear prevents it from moving forward.

      Now, I could be wrong. Perhaps we will make a mistake, invite the wrong people down. But I'd rather make that mistake, that be ruled eternally by fear.

      --
      I am John Hurt.
    12. Re:War! by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 2

      A lot of scifi is bogged down with the concept of aliens needing something from Earth, but this concept is mostly not plausible. Water is everywhere. Minerals are everywhere. No, they don't even need to eat us. If you can cross space by whatever method, you have probably figured out food or evolved or engineered yourselves beyond the need to eat constantly like humans do.

      What if the aliens require massive computing power? The large mass of sentient brains of this planet could be a very rare thing in the cosmos. Complex chemistry for life is common all over the universe. Maybe multicellular life is also common in this universe. But a massively parallel simulating biological computer is probably rare enough to encounter that it's easier for them to coopt rather than engineer.

      It's not hard to imagine, at least for me, that an alien race may find it easier to build on biological computing technology than it is to keep pushing the boundaries of physics for smaller non-biological computers.

      --
      Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
    13. Re:War! by swalve · · Score: 3, Funny

      Man, we think we have trouble getting the right answers out of the internet. Imagine some poor space geek trying to get calculations out of Mainframe Earth, and all he keeps getting is porn, fart jokes and funny hats that start wars.

    14. Re:War! by arth1 · · Score: 2

      They may be concerned when they see we have achieved space travel. Their concern will drop as they watch our space programs dissolve into obscurity.

      I wonder what aliens without a concept of fiction would think if they saw Star Trek, Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica.

      Too bad I won't find out, because our signals are way too weak to reach anywhere and be distinguishable from general noise.. Even if they had giant radio ears pointed precisely in our direction (or where we were when the signals were transmitted), and filtered out all the radio noise from the sun, our feeble omnidirectional transmissions would drown in the much more powerful radio signals from Jupiter.

    15. Re:War! by dudpixel · · Score: 2

      What if WE are the resources not more easily obtained elsewhere?

      --
      This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
    16. Re:War! by arth1 · · Score: 2

      You may not be aware, but we have this huge nuclear bomb continuously exploding around 8 light-minutes away. Our efforts isn't even a blip compared to that.
      What you're saying is as silly as thinking that igniting plant material under the decomposing remains of a related species would cause a supreme being to take notice and alter the rules of the universe to benefit the doer.
      I can't disprove either, but it's still bullshit.

    17. Re:War! by JWSmythe · · Score: 2

          Bah, you kill off the defective ones, and then they're cheaper and self reproducing. Once you have a good seed population, they'll work for you forever. They're also somewhat good learners. You only have to kill off a few as an example to others, and they'll remember for a long time.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    18. Re:War! by Greyfox · · Score: 3, Funny

      Robots aren't quite as delicious.

      --

      I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    19. Re:War! by sudon't · · Score: 2
      What imaginations!
      Listen, folks - just because one plus one equals two, doesn't mean you have two of anything. Until we figure out how life began, we have no way of predicting whether life is a unique event, or possibly even a commonplace in the galaxy, or the universe. As far as anyone can tell right now, we are alone. If water, and a spot in a habitable zone, automatically equalled life, why have we never seen the generation of new life here on Earth? The evidence suggests we have all descended from a single, unique event.

      I think that, barring new information, it is extremely optimistic to expect to find life elsewhere, let alone life forms who've managed to overcome the speed limit of the universe in order to be able to travel the insanely vast distances, (please, do not bring up "wormholes"), your scenarios would require.

      --
      -- sudon't

      Air-ride Equipped

  3. Required by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 5, Funny

    "I for one welcome our new..."

    Ah, nevermind.

  4. It's the mice by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

    Biting the cables. Each bust is one being electrocuted.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  5. Re:Chances of this being something are a million t by Jmc23 · · Score: 5, Informative

    um, the probability of this being something is 1. Now the probability of this being something interesting...

    --
    Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
  6. Get your speakers out, everyone... by sidthegeek · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's time to start playing Indian Love Call.

  7. Four bursts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Quick! Triangulate where in space time that these four events wavefronts will arrive simultaneously..

    And point all your telescopes there.

    1. Re:Four bursts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's too late. We've detected all four events, so we're inside the expanding spherical wavefronts of all of them: the intersection has already happened. Because they were all detected so close together (less than a year apart), the intersection must have been very close; and since the last one was over a year ago (January 2012), any signal from the intersection point has already passed us by.

      The other problem is that single-dish radio telescopes don't give us a very precise idea of where the signal comes from. We just know that each of them came from somewhere in a patch of sky about the size of the moon. Ideally, what we'd like to do is to detect one of these signals with two telescopes at once. That would confirm that it's a real thing (rather than a bug in one of the telescopes); and the times of arrival at the two telescopes would tell us very precisely where the signal came from.

      (I am a radio astronomer, but I don't work on the type of transients described in the article.)

  8. What? by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 2

    Okay just hold on a minute. FTA:

    What is known is that in just a few milliseconds, each of the signals released about as much energy as the sun emits in 300,000 years.

    That's a third of a million years worth of the energy output from the entire sun in milliseconds and no corresponding light flash or other radiation? Could the sources possibly be weaker and closer and we just got the maths wrong?

    1. Re:What? by Black+Parrot · · Score: 3, Funny

      That's a third of a million years worth of the energy output from the entire sun in milliseconds and no corresponding light flash or other radiation?

      It will take the thunder a lot longer to get here.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    2. Re:What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      It was a million voices crying out then suddenly silenced.

      Remember, this flash came from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

    3. Re:What? by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      And a wild assed guess as to distance. Not in the galactic plane, so I'm assuming they assumed it was intergalactic distance.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    4. Re:What? by marcosdumay · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They determined that the origin is not in our galaxy, but it looks like they know nothing else about it.

      Could it be red-shifted gamma ray bursts?

      --
      Rethinking email
  9. It's the Doctor's fault by ArcadeMan · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's the TARDIS causing cracks in the space-time continuum.

    --
    Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
  10. Re:Chances of this being something are a million t by asicsolutions · · Score: 2

    Million to one chances occur 9/10 times. (Terry Pratchet (paraphrased))

  11. And todays random unit of measurement is.... by Thiarna · · Score: 3, Funny
    Mosquitoes.

    They have come such a long way that by the time they reach the Earth, the Parkes telescope would have to operate for 1 million years to collect enough to have the equivalent energy of a flying mosquito

  12. But the question is... by manu0601 · · Score: 2

    ...does NSA have a program to record that?

  13. Advanced tech for space habitats from asteroids by Paul+Fernhout · · Score: 3

    See this 2007 discussion form more on this: http://science.slashdot.org/story/07/08/05/1450217/the-fermi-paradox-is-back

    Really, who wold want to live in a gravity well if they don't have to?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film)
    http://www.itsbetteruphere.com/
    http://space.mike-combs.com/l5-fcis.htm
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_habitat
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining

    To go beyond what we can do with today's technology, quantum physics tells us that there is potentially an infinite amount of matter and energy in any finite volume of space. And visible space is vast (14 billion light years cubed, at least). There may be things that will still be fought over, but they are probably different things than access to matter and energy (aesthetics about hat colors?).

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy#Utilization_Controversy
    "As a scientific concept, the existence of zero-point energy is not controversial although the ability to harness it is."

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_(Red_Dwarf)
    "The race eventually splits and descends into civil war, over what colour the hats at the hot dog and doughnut stand Lister planned to open on Fiji were going to be (in the later-published novelization "Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers" the cause of the cat civil war is whether their god was named Cloister or Clister). Ironically the two factions claimed they were going to be red or blue, whilst Lister had wanted them to be green."

    Besides, methane breathers might find Earth fairly inhospitable, preferring, say, Saturn's moon Titan? And machine intelligence might prefer the Oort cloud for ready access to materials in zero gravity?

    --
    A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
    1. Re:Advanced tech for space habitats from asteroids by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      quantum physics tells us that there is potentially an infinite amount of matter and energy in any finite volume of space.

      Citation needed. Don't post the goat link.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'