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500 million light years away
Researchers based in Vancouver have generated quite a buzz with a paper describing their observation of something called Fast Radio Bursts. Fast Radio Bursts are sudden pulses of radio waves that come from outside our galaxy and last only a fraction of a second. Using a telescope introduced in 2018, the scientists have recorded some 28 bursts—not a bad haul, considering that Fast Radio Bursts were only discovered in 2007.
But it’s one series of Fast Radio Bursts that has set the cat among the pigeons. They come from a spiral galaxy some 500 million light years away, and they recur with a predictable interval of once every 16.35 days. The regularity of the intervals has got the scientific community puzzled— and excited. The intervals can’t be occurring by chance, or from a single cataclysm. So what’s the explanation?
Some people—cheered on by the chair of the department of astronomy at Harvard University—have speculated that aliens could be sending them. The authors of the study say they lean towards an explanation that is “astrophysical in origin”—something about the relative orbits of a star and a black hole. But those who favour the existence of extraterrestrial life say the possibility of this explanation remains open.
On top of the Fast Radio Bursts project, the privately financed SETI Institute (short for Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) is teaming up with New Mexico’s Very Large Observatory (what a great name!) and will shortly conduct the very first sweep of the entire sky using 28 giant radio telescopes, with the specific objective of looking for intelligent life. So it’s an interesting time to be an astrophysicist.
I’m not sure I’m ready for news that intelligent life may exist beyond the bounds of Earth, or our planetary system. I applaud the search for knowledge, but I fail to see how the discovery of intelligent life some 500 million light years away is going to affect me, other than negatively. I don’t want to spend the next 500 million years worrying about what we are going to encounter when we come into contact with these aliens. What if they transmit disease and pestilence? What if their civilization chose Betamax instead of VHS?
Besides, it would take so long just to visit them. The fastest spaceship we make can travel only one light year in 18,000 years. So it would take that long, times 500 million, to get there, never mind the journey back. Just like monarch butterflies, multiple men and women astronauts starting the journey would have to reproduce crews to finish it.
So if we are going to meet aliens, we must trust that they will choose to visit Earth instead. But how do we know that they will contact humans? What lf they decide their prospects are better doing business with the cockroaches? Or the elephants, crows, rats or trees?
And if we meet them, are we prepared for how they will appear to us? The chances that they will in fact be little green men whose first words are “We come in peace. Take us to your leader!” are remote: they are just as likely to be a form of slime mold that speaks a language we can’t comprehend and that is bridling with hostile intent. Cue the old Jodie Foster and Amy Adams movies for more speculation.
Should they choose to land here in the County, are we well enough prepared to host a visit? What form should the welcoming ceremony take? We can only hope that they will arrive during the hockey season so they can take in a Dukes game. They can be given the usual winery tour, with a designated driver paid for by the County from its road repair reserve. If they come during tourist season, we’ll have to find some way to give them priority access to the Sandbanks so they don’t have to spend their day lining up to get in.
Perhaps the County can make plans to name a new roundabout in their honour; or have a demonstration debate about the size of council. Will they be appalled at the number of short-term accommodation properties? Will they share our fear for the future of the County’s roads? Will they deplore the state of our sewage treatment facilities?
We need a lot more time before the are ready to host aliens, Give us another, say, 500 million years. That’s light years.
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