What are the odds aliens will ever spot this, retrieve it and realize it is a message from another civilization?

assume you can see voyager from 20,000 lightyears away (lol). The galaxy is 100,000 lightyears wide, there are 100 billion galaxies. so no one is probably going to find it.

First radio signal is some message from the Fürer

It's a couple of meters across and it won't drift into many solar system. The small bodies we find are close. The distant bodies we find are stars or larger.
Remember it won't be transmitting anything and will be at equilibrium temperature with space, maybe 5 or 6 degrees Absolute.

Suppose, despite those handicaps, we could spot anything within the orbit of Pluto. Wildly over-optimistic but I want to show the hopelessness of the task.
Imagine a rectangular block of space 100 by 100 lightyears, extending all the way to the center of the galaxy. 3.3e8 cubic lightyears. Stars are about 4 lightyears apart so figure 64 cubic lightyears per star. That block contains 5.156 million suns.
The probe's trajectory enters through one of those 100x100 lightyear faces and leaves through the other one. It doesn't matter WHERE in the block the spacecraft passes through a system. We can simplify the problem by reducing solar systems to paper discs the size of Pluto's orbit, orienting them face on, and sweeping them all to the end of the block, placing them randomly with no overlap. This maximizes the chance of passing through at least one solar system. Pluto's semi-major axis is 5.9e9 km or 6.23e-4 lightyears. The orbit encloses 1.22e-6 square lightyears. The total area of all those paper discs is 6.29 square lightyears. The trailing edge of the block is 10,000 square lightyears so the chances of the probe passing through another solar system are 1 in 1600.
And, as I stated earlier, it's going to be a cold, dead lump, quite unlikely to be noticed even as close as a few billion kilometers.

No

We'll end up imploding our solar system up in some future interstellar war and cause a huge gravitational wave that'll push it off into the far cosmos. Perhaps then our story shall be found.

bretty gud

The chance that it's going to collide with something and be destroyed is much bigger than it being found by ETs. Even if it flew around for billions of years without being destroyed (and the chances of that happening are pretty much 0) it will more than likely never be found.

>What are the odds
Lrn2odds fgt pls

What about my cat, she's pretty bright. Or is she included in the set labeled "us?"

What is signal attenuation?

Radio is mostly held in by the ionosphere
Television goes straight out. It doesn't bounce, which is why TV reception areas are relatively small. But it's broadcast, not narrow-beamed.
Military radars produce tight beams, but they carry little information and don't point in fixed directions, compensating for the rotation of the Earth. Hence, they'd sweep across another star system in an eyeblink.
When the Arecibo telescope broadcast a greetings, it was because astronomers had decided that it could be picked up by a comparable telescope anywhere in the galaxy. Again, a very narrow beam. Probably just a few seconds of arc.
Earth is leaking much less EM these days thanks to fiber optics, low-powered cellular networks, and comsats.
Furthermore, TV is digital now, highly compressed and they only send the parts of the image which changed from the last frame. Even on the channels which aren't scrambled (so people have to pay to watch) I defy anyone any race without access to our technical manuals to make any sense out of a modern TV transmission. Ideal communication systems minimize redundancy and, if intercepted, just appear to be random noise.

But it will go further away over the time.

GODSPEED VOYAGER-CHAN!

this is correct. There are plenty of ayylien signals flying by earth, but they are so highly encrypted and compressed that we can't discern them from background noise.

...

>it'll probably outlive the solar system.
[citation needed]
I wonder how long it _will_ last, but I doubt we're talking about billions of years.

>there are no intelligent life forms in the universe except us
Have you checked the entire universe, the observable universe, or just the entire Milky Way?

>First radio signal is some message from the Fürer
Marconi was broadcasting across the Atlantic in 1902.
Hitler was 13.

Even many insects are intelligent, retard. I'd say there is or will be at least some, we will never see any indication of them though. Let alone actually contact them.

Effectively 0, space is big.

Source on this?

>But it will go further away over the time.
In about 40,000 years, it will be a little closer to Gliese 445 than Earth, though it can never reach it because the other star is moving much faster than Voyager.

>humans
>ever capable of "imploding" the solar system
I'd be impressed if we could one day manage to "implode" ceres.....

you think it's more likely that it'll collide with something instead of drfting away forever??
And with what would it collide?? Space is very empty, you know....

>Space is very empty, you know....
He's comparing the risk of collision to the likelyhood of being found by ETs.
Unless he has some secret knowledge of ETs, he's pulling numbers out of his ass.

>set
pretty sure it's a series

It's more than 18 light minutes, considering how it takes 9 hours to send a message to a satellite orbiting Saturn.

The only objects getting spotted are the ones emitting light. We didn't spot the asteroid that was heading for Russia.

Saturn is 66 light minutes away when it's closest to Earth, 94 light minutes away at the farthest.
space.com/18477-how-far-away-is-saturn.html

Voyager 1 is 1045 light minutes out.

google.com/search?q=distance to voyager 1

>us

why did we put such a stupid message on it, we're fucking idiots

At some point it is going to come too close to a sun, planet, black hole, etc. and then it's gone forever.

The chances of it being found to give witness of our existence are about the same as a pre-historic civilization that has left no proof of its existence whatsoever, except one golden coin that is hidden somewhere beneath the grounds of the oceans.

Because SJWs. The message is just "hello" in every earth language. It would be confusing as fuck to any alien trying to figure out the message under the assumption that all the words are from the same language.

>Have to assume they're not brainlets

>yfw ayys are basically monkeys with wings capable of interstellar travel

If I cant even read that and im master of engineering, then how the fuck can aliens read that?

What a bunch of retards

Do you know binary?

>Because SJWs.
So what would a Trump-tard have put on it?
>confusing as fuck
I suspect it would be pretty clear the words aren't from the same language. Therefore the message tells the alien we aren't a single culture.
Wait, that's political too.
Oh well, I guess you can't be a white supremacist unless there's some other race to be superior to,

>The message is just "hello" in every earth language.
Nope.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record
> Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, thunder and animals
>(including the songs of birds and whales). To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras,
>spoken greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages, other human sounds, like footsteps and laughter (Sagan's),[1]
>and printed messages from U.S. president Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.
>The record also includes the inspirational message Per aspera ad astra in Morse code.

Granted, it's a pointless feel-good message, but what else _would_ you put on there?

Idiots don't build spaceships.
A large percentage of the people posting on Veeky Forums will never build spaceships.

I don't think anyone ever imagined it would be translated.
Or ever seen again by anybody. They could do the arithmetic in too,
It was symbolic, like "Kilroy was here" or the graffiti sprayed on buildings. (Or carved into the pyramids for that matter.)
People just have an urge to scream "I existed! I was somebody! I did this!" because they fear they'll die and be forgotten.

"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my Works..."

...

It's going to spend it's journey being bombarded by high energy cosmic particles. In the incredibly unlikely event anything encounters it, it's probably going to be as a powdery clump of metal dust. It would certainly be impossible to read anything on the disc or play any sounds off of it.

If the ayyliens are going to be bobble headed retards from Star Trek it just isn't worth it

I don't know about that. High energy radiation is going to need a very long time to do anything to a lump of gold.

>it's probably going to be as a powdery clump of metal dust.

google.com/search?q=how long will the voyager disc last
space.stackexchange.com/questions/4743/for-how-long-will-the-voyager-records-remain-playable
>The record is constructed of gold-plated copper. Stable isotopes of both metals do not decay atomically.
>Barring any impacts with space rocks or other events like that, the records will last and be playable pretty much forever.

>What are the odds aliens will ever spot this

not enough data for a meaningful answer.

I'm guessing 1.

We live in a bubble.
The universe is actually only about 40 billion kilometers (267AU) in diameter, and everything beyond that is an illusion projected on the bubble.
Voyager's going to hit the wall in about 2 years.

wait, are we moving away from "FlatEarth wall of ice" to "Round Earth but wall in space" now?

Yep.
Our alien zookeepers originally used a flat world, but eventually expanded the exhibit to a spherical form.

3

>Ancient aliens: Tolkien edition
I like where this is going

Low, higher if they are actively looking for it. It will be slightly warmer than everything else out there due to decay of it's power supply.

What are the odds of humans ever spotting an alien object of similar purpose?

Zero percent given the fact space travel doesnt actually exist, neither do satellites, and neither do probes.

It's either sitting at the bottom of the ocean somewhere or stored underground or more likely they never made two at all and the one on display is the one they made.

Don't count on that.
The half-life of PU238 is 87.7 years.
Voyager will make it's first approach to another star in 40,000 years.
After that time its initial power will have decayed by a factor of 2e137.
Since that's inconceivably more than the estimated number of atoms in the universe it's clear there won't be any plutonium left.

Both false.

While the human population has been growing exponentially for a long time, it will presumably peak and decline as all things eventually do. There is no set or series that could: A., subtract and add from itself on a whim, B., do this with the pinpoint precision necessary to model the entire human population, and C., do any of this without a very, very large team of mathematicians, computer scientists, and logicians constantly monitoring and editing it. In that last case, such an entity would be a pretty elaborate algorithm or something, not a "set" or a "series" you Calculus II engineering faggots.

i really like this example, let me steal it and look like a eloquent guy

>While the human population has been growing exponentially for a long time,
Nope.
That would require a fixed percentage growth each year.
55 years ago, growth was 2.2%, today it's half that.

>let me steal it and look like a eloquent guy
Not him, but,,, you might want to correct his figure. Voyager 1 is 1045 light minutes out, not 18.
But yeah, he's otherwise both right _and_ poetic.

Got curious and listened to some of the music on it and it's straight fire god damn.
youtube.com/watch?v=eLY_jmdPpeg
youtube.com/watch?v=S5_d6_N7d3k
youtube.com/watch?v=Rat2vEMojeM
youtube.com/watch?v=V8AuYmID4wc

Aliens of a sort, but not aliens as you know them, Jim.

It will be found by our intellectual descendants. Intelligences that were initially created by us, but which became so remotely removed through the passage of time that they no longer resemble any form of human intellect. At least not at the higher intellectual levels.

They will pick it up for study becasue they will be curious about examining any last remains that points towards their distant origins.

Much in the same way we study the fossils of creatures for clues about our own origins. But not fossil ape like creatures from a mere few millions of yeas ago, nor even the reptiles or amphibians that preceded them tens of millions years before that. That is far too recent.

The ancient fish from 100's of millions of years ago then? Those specific fish which swam in Silurian seas from which we, as humans, are directly descended?

Haha. No. Still too recent. Far too close.

A closer analogy would be the first single celled animals, eukaryotes, that inhabited the ancestral seas a billion years ago.

That would be the sort of intellectual gulf between those who finally track down and examine the Voyager and those who launched it.

But these distant intellects of the future, they still would kith and kin, wouldn't they, no matter how remote? Surely they would still retain some sort of humanity? Well, I guess you could say that, in a manner of speaking, as a testimony to their origin. But then, to be pragmatic, how closely do you you consider yourself related on any level, either biologically or intellectually, to the single celled organisms that swim around in the pond water at the local park? Despite the fact that they are your distant cousins.

Do we even have any way of knowing that it wasn't smashed into dust by an asteroid or something?

we still can faintly pick it up
soon though it will no longer be able to be detected

>Mount Rushmore

*Looks at image*

Well, that's relevant.

obligatory

youtube.com/watch?v=w_T0Xt_PooM

liek if u cry every tiem

Wow the entire universe is a nu male’s faggy face

We're still talking to both of them.
eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

sbnation.com/a/17776-football/chapter-1

>sbnation.com/a/17776-football/chapter-1

One of the most intriguing things Ive seen in recent times on the internet.

Who created this work of genius?

the best sports news writer in the world, Jon Bois. Everything he does is gold youtube.com/watch?v=doZzrsDJo-4

Man, that was great. I don't even know anything about American football, but that was fascinating.

The book contact adresses this. Basically something with the Hitler signal being much more powerful and the right frequency to be easier to receive.

>Jon Bois
I don't give a fuck about sports, and I still follow that guy's videos religiously. He's just really good at describing stuff in an interesting way.

Jon Bois on poker:
youtube.com/watch?v=CTUZ2SrSxsA

Jon Bois on body-building forums:
youtube.com/watch?v=eECjjLNAOd4

Voyager will be picked up by humans in a century or two and placed in some Solar System museum.
It is likely that by then we will confirm existence of aliens by hypertelescopes or solar gravity lens(although only visible sign will be detected and not real communication).
Advanced civilisation likely would have telescope arrays allowing it to observe citites and night lights on Earth

You don't know this.

How convenient.
I'm sure glad the author knows so much about not only human radio technology, but apparently alien radio tech as well.

>Advanced civilisation likely would have telescope arrays allowing it to observe citites and night lights on Earth
I'd really like to see the math on this.

nextbigfuture.com/2016/12/looking-at-taiwan-phone-call-in-terms.html

Gliese 832 c is the first exoplanet imaged by the Asteroid Belt Astronomical Telescope. This image, with a resolution of 10 meters, was released last month by ABAT, after the telescope’s construction was 1% completed. (Courtesy of Laura Kim.)

An array with elements that share Jupiters orbit would nearly double the effective aperture diameter. Increasing the distance to Neptune and the Kuiper belt would boost resolution further.

Instead of waiting for laser shaping of asteroids, we can start mass production of cubesats with 2 meter mirrors. Deploying these telescopes around the solar system could form a hypertelescope that has the capabilities of the imagined asteroid belt telescope.

The theoretical limit of 2 × 10^−11 arcsec suggests millimeter resolution at 100 light years.

Seth Shostak described a very large optical interferometry space telescope array. Using interferometry to pool data from thousands of small mirrors in space spread out over 100 million miles to image exoplanets 100 light years away down to 2 meter resolution.

At 100 light-years, something the size of a Honda Accord subtends an angle of a half-trillionth of a second of arc. In case that number doesn’t speak to you, it’s roughly the apparent size of a cell nucleus on Pluto, as viewed from Earth.

I think you would have a cube or sphere 1 AU across and that volume would be filled with say 1 million space telescopes. This way every 0.01 AU there is a space telescope and then they get tasked to work with different scopes at different times in order to look at other locations. Each scope would need its own shading devices. so all of the actions are close together And only pivoting is required. 1 billion scopes would mean one every 0.001 AU. etc…

There are no intelligent life forms in the known universe

correct link
nextbigfuture.com/2016/12/vision-of-asteroid-belt-astronomical.html

Note that this is just one of the options, you can also use Sun's gravity lensing

>There are no intelligent life forms in the known universe
Dolphins, Bonobos, Horses,Dogs-all of them are intelligent life forms.
Primates, Birds,Octopuses also are tool users.

WOW

...but just so were clear, the text is just larping?
This is a potential technology that doesn't exist, despite the "news from the future" format.

If this works it makes it a lot more likely any nearby neighbors already know we're here.

An optical interferometric telescope requires the relative positions of the individual elements to be known to within a fraction of a wavelength of light.
Or, alternatively, each 'scope records its data along with a time-stamp accurate to within the time it take light to travel that same fraction of a wavelength. This is how radio interferometry works across continents. There, the wavelength are millions of times larger, the scopes are fixed in position, unmoving, and at nearly identical gravitational potentials.

You copied the text from NextBigFuture -- but omitted the "speculative" line.

Gravity lensing works too. If and when we get probes as far out as the focal point.