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posted by cmn32480 on Monday January 02 2017, @04:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the sorry-for-the-delay-in-our-response dept.

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2016/12/contact-with-proxmina-centauri-b

Douglas Vakoch, the former Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute, is launching the METI Initiative with one planet in mind: the recently discovered planet around Proxima Centauri, the closest star to Earth (and thus the closest exoplanet.)

Vakoch says that METI has more than a few targets in mind, there are a few advantages to Proxima Centauri b.

"First, it's close to our solar system, keeping the time for a roundtrip exchange as short as possible," Vakoch says. "Second, some have suggested that this exoplanet is potentially habitable."


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @05:55PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @05:55PM (#448586)

    You willing to take that risk? I'm not.

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  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday January 02 2017, @06:01PM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday January 02 2017, @06:01PM (#448588) Journal

    If they come to eat us, they at least won't wipe us from the surface of the planet. Which I'd consider the greater risk by orders of magnitude.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @06:47PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @06:47PM (#448605)

    They aren't going to eat us, any more than you would go to the Moon for a hamburger even if we discovered cows living there. They aren't going to come for our resources either, any more than you would go to the moon to get dirt for your garden. They might be xenophobic and want to attack anyone they meet out of fear, but there's zero chance they'll attack because we have something they want.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @06:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @06:52PM (#448606)

      With a cheap enough source of energy, they could come for our resources just like you would use a bag of moon dirt that gently descended to Earth in your garden.

      They could come to eat us, just like you would blow $200 to eat some truffles served on an iPad, or a steak at Trump's hotel.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @07:55PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @07:55PM (#448623)

        You are already assuming that they might attack us for fun rather than for some useful purpose. Which they might, but even that is incredibly unlikely. For one, any civilization that is that violent is probably going to have a hard time with the level of cooperation needed to mount such an operation.

        There is a maximum level of technology that any possible aliens there could have. We know, for instance, that they haven't built a Dyson swarm. We also know that they haven't attacked us yet, which either means they aren't hostile or aren't very dangerous. If they had achieved interstellar flight, they would have already been here, or at least their probes would have. We are, after all, just as close to them as they are to us.

        The only possible way they could be both hostile and dangerous is if:
        * They are very xenophobic, and
        * Intentionally stay very quiet to avoid detection by potentially even more advanced civilizations, and
        * Assume that every other species will feel the same way, and
        * Have enough unity that no one in their own civilization ever sends such messages, and
        * Are willing to conduct a very expensive (and very loud) military operation to try to prevent anyone else from sending messages, and
        * For some reason did not attack during, say, the 17th century, before we had the capability to send interstellar messages and were also a lot less dangerous militarily

        It's a pretty tall order to come up with a way for all these pieces to fit together.

        Most likely, of course, there's just nobody there. At least nobody intelligent.

        • (Score: 2) by inertnet on Monday January 02 2017, @11:22PM

          by inertnet (4071) on Monday January 02 2017, @11:22PM (#448695) Journal

          They've got one thing going for them, they're not humans.

        • (Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:18AM

          by dry (223) on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:18AM (#448788) Journal

          Read Footfall for one take on why and how beings from Alpha Centauri come to Earth to attack and hopefully take over.
          Herd creatures with a surrender instinct fight wars differently and being the second intelligent life to evolve on their planet, have technology handed to them rather then discovering it (the predecessors left lots of directions engraved in boulders). Well done story with realistic aliens based on elephants rather then apes and mostly current technology plus fusion. The aliens having the high ground and dropping rocks is almost enough to win and would be if we fought wars as they do.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footfall [wikipedia.org]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @11:59AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @11:59AM (#448861)

          All green of skin. 800 centuries ago their bodily fluids include the birth of half-breeds. For the fundimental truth and self-determination of the cosmos. For dark is the suede that mows like a harvest.