An Extraterrestrial Detection?

Last December, Dr. Ragbir Bhathal of the Australia OSETI (Optical Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project detected an anomalous pulse of laser radiation from somewhere in the Southern night sky. A link to a story, as reported in The Australian on 5/9/09, is located here.

So far, there are no press releases or other information regarding where the signal came from, how distant it was, or its estimated absolute magnitude. OZ OSETI has released a graph of the pulse, shown below.



SETI is more widely known for conducting surveys of the sky at radio frequencies in hopes of detecting modulated radio waves coming from other civilizations in space. With the exception of the infamous "WOW signal", the results of various radio surveys have been unspectacular to say the least.

Many astrobiologists believe that advanced civilizations in space may communicate, or announce their presence, through the emission of laser radiation - hence, the Optical SETI program.

OZ OSETI says they're not ready to celebrate just yet. Although earthly interference and glitches in the detection equipment have apparently been ruled out, the signal has not reappeared after the "Is It ET?" signal of last December. Before scientists announce "First Contact", candidate signals must run a gauntlet of exacting tests ... including that the signal be able to be detected at different times, from different locations on Earth.

Bhathal and his colleagues are also looking into the possibility that the flash could have been produced by an "optical pulsar" or some other natural phenomenon. But if the flash detected was, as reported, laser light, it could only come from an artificial source. And an "optical pulsar" should be observable over time, and from various locations on Earth.

I'll keep tabs on this one, although just now, there isn't a lot of news about it.

Mapping The Multiverse

There's an interesting piece at New Scientist about "Mapping The Multiverse".

The idea that our universe is but one of perhaps an infinite number of realities goes back decades. Indeed, the idea that concept was an outgrowth of the one-two physics punch of Relativity and Quantum theories. Until recently, the possibility of parallel universes were seen as mathematical oddities, things that had a slim chance of existing but probably did not because they very notion was just too crazy, too messy.

Prior to starting this post, I debated whether to write about parallel universes, or the opposite of the placebo effect, the "nocebo" effect, in which people who believe they're sick and dying really do get sick and die. I chose to write about parallel universes. But if we are embedded in a much deeper multiverse, there's a place where I chose to write about the nocebo effect; and also, a place where I chose to write about robotic teachers in Japan; and a place where I wrote about ...

However, with the rise of Superstring Theory, physicists are growing increasingly convinced that these "other realities" actually exist. Says Brian Green, string theorist and author of the bestselling book The Elegant Universe: "I have personally undergone a sort of transformation, where I am very warm to this possibility of there being many universes, and that we are in the one where we can survive."

What's more, physicists are preparing to ... well, perhaps not map other universes, but at least determine their properties mathematically.

So, while you're enjoying the article, I'm off to run some errands. While I'm out, I plan to have lunch at Subway -

- McDonalds ...

- Arby's ...

- ∞

Warp Drive?

While I grew up with Star Trek, I don't quite consider myself a Trekkie. That is, I don't have models of Klingon Battle Cruisers dangling from the ceiling with fishing line (not since about 1974), I don't go to Trek conventions, and I don't prance around the house in a Federation uniform and pointy, latex, stick-on ears.

But the concept of "warp drive" continues to fascinate me - from a fiction perspective if nothing else. Without some form of faster-than-light drive in our future, the universe becomes a very small place. Aliens can't come here, we can't go to the aliens. This possibility wrecks a lot of potential for fiction writing.

Einstein figured out almost a century ago that no material object or packet of information can go faster than the speed of light. True, one can travel close to the speed of light and undergo time dilation, so that centuries could pass on Earth as an astronaut is zipping across the cosmos at 99% c (c being the speed of light, 186, 282 miles per second). One of my favorite authors, Larry Niven, had a lot of fun with this in his short stories, and in novels such as A World Out Of Time. But wouldn't it great if we could travel to a planet circling an inhabited star 200 light years away, hobnob with the extraterrestrials there, and be back in time to take the wife out for Mother's Day?

There are several proposed methods for traveling faster than light, but my favorite is this: although material objects cannot exceed c, space itself can travel faster than light. Physicist Alan Guth worked this into his Inflationary Universe Hypothesis, in which he showed that, at some point fractions of a second after the Big Bang, the universe - space itself - expanded at FTL speed.

Not long ago, a Mexican physicist named Michael Alcubierre proposed that a ship could travel faster than light by contracting the space in front of it, while expanding the space behind it. I picture a spacecraft like a surfboard, riding a wave of spacetime at FTL velocities. It's an elegant idea and image and, up until April 3rd, 2009, an entirely possible thing to accomplish, given arbitrary advances in energy generation and management.

However, a trio of Spanish physicists have published a paper showing that while it's hypothetically possible to move a patch of spacetime - with a ship embedded within that bubble - at FTL velocities, the bubble itself would quickly fill with intense Hawking radiation, killing the crew and likely vaporizing any material within.

A month later, Marc Millis, former head of NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project, said such a thing is indeed possible. However, I can find no technical papers challenging the Hawking radiation problem.

So the debate goes on. I suspect we won't have firm answers to such questions for decades, or perhaps even longer. And, even assuming a "warp drive" is possible, I don't look for engineers to design a prototype anytime soon. But if you write science fiction or other imaginitive literature, this stories bears careful watching.

Two Point Oh

My website, GonzoHorror dot com, has evolved. The old version was far too complicated, and tried to do far too many things with far too many moving parts. Following the physicist's dictum, "simplify, simplify", I decided to focus only on my writing at GH rather than on my writing, my hobbies, my CG art, ad infinitum. My biggest problem is, too damn many things interest me. I suppose I should focus on one thing at a ... well, maybe not at a time (impossible); but I can at least try to focus on one thing in a given space. Visitors should find the new version a bit more friendly and attractive.