[meteorite-list] OT: Happy Birthday Sputnik...50

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2007 14:11:57 -0500
Message-ID: <052201c806ba$7507ac60$b92ee146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi,

    The Sputnik signal was very weak, powered as
it was by fading batteries, and of short duration.
But the true picture is that it was orbiting a rock
sphere that was ablaze in the radio spectrum, that
was already a powerful interstellar radio anomaly.

    For the last 100 years, a strange astrophysical
phenomenon happened in our otherwise normal
solar system. A strange dark body, very small,
in orbit around this ordinary unremarkable star,
suddenly brightened in the radio spectrum until,
within decades, it outshone its star in emitted
radio energy.

    If there are any radio astronomers within 100
light years, on planets of the 10,000+ stars within
that radius, most (all) have discovered this inexplicable
event. Using the high resolution possible with radio
astronomy, they have observed that the invisible
but ultrabright radio source shifts from side to side
by many mega-glucks in a period of millions of
ticks, and have rightly deduced that it is a planetary
body that has gone incredibly "radio bright." And
over time, the growth of that brightness has been
virtually exponential.

    That can mean only one thing. Critters. Us.

    If you wonder if the "others" know we're here,
rest your mind. We are the neighbor with the 5700
watts of yard lights or the stereo playing heavy metal
at 1200 watts with lots of bass boost... or both. We
are Radio Raheem with the largest boombox in this
neck of the Galaxy. Or, more like it, the 316,000 watt
Christmas yard display going all year long because
it just too pretty to turn off.

    Every time we shift some tranmissions to newer,
non-emissive modes (fiber optics, satellites), we fill
the void with new types of transmissions. Cell phones!
We stay bright, and we continue to brighten. Think
what it will be like when we have spread across the
solar system and have every kind of interplanetary
radiowave networks, a million meteor detection pulsed
radars, and a 100 billion cellphones. We will be the
brightest radio source in many thousand light years.

    Sadly, it also means that if they were anybody even
remotely like us within 100 light years, they would look
exactly the same to us. And there isn't any such radio
source --- noisy, multi-banded, bright --- anywhere.


Sterling K. Webb
-------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Jensen" <meteoriteplaya at gmail.com>
To: <lebofsky at lpl.arizona.edu>
Cc: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>; "drtanuki" <drtanuki at yahoo.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 12:47 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] OT: Happy Birthday Sputnik...50


Hi Larry
Damn that is a long way away. Hard to fathom how far away 50 light
years is though.
I wonder what the chances are of the signal directly hitting anyone of
those 800 star/star systems.

It is neat to think that the signal is so far away but unfortunately
the signal would be unrecognizable to any alien cultures. It would
just be too spread out (think of a radio station at a great distance)
for anyone to pick it up.

-- 
Mike
--
Mike Jensen
Jensen Meteorites
16730 E Ada PL
Aurora, CO 80017-3137
303-337-4361
IMCA 4264
website: www.jensenmeteorites.com
On 10/4/07, lebofsky at lpl.arizona.edu <lebofsky at lpl.arizona.edu> wrote:
> Dirk:
>
> 1 light year = 9.46 X 10^15 meters or 9.46 x 10^12 km. So, in 50 years:
>
> 4.7 x 10^14 km (470 trillion kilimeters). That is within range of a lot of
> stars.
>
> There are a 100 stars within 7.63 parsecs (almost 25 light years), so if
> you double the distance, there are about 800 stars (star systems) that
> have "heard" from Sputnik!
>
> Larry
>
> On Thu, October 4, 2007 4:15 am, drtanuki wrote:
> > Hi List,
> > Sputnik is now 50!  Time flys.  What does this have
> > to do with meteorites?...much more than you might first think!...it 
> > totally
> > changed our history and this One Step for Mankind will continue to lead 
> > to
> > our future (survival/destruction) as well.
> >
> > Congrats to the dedicated
> > Russians/Germans/Amerikans/Humans that worked dearly,
> > for this feat regardless of the negatives it ushered in with all of the
> > positives.  Their personal sacrifice should be remembered.
> >
> > Anyone want to tune in their radio?
> > bleep..............................bleep...
> >
> > BTW how far into space has Sputnik`s message now
> > traveled after 50years???  Sterling...anyone???
> >
> > Best Regards, Dirk Ross...Tokyo
> > ______________________________________________
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> > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
> >
> >
>
>
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Received on Thu 04 Oct 2007 03:11:57 PM PDT