Archive for the ‘Space’ Category
Thursday, April 9th, 2026
In 1960, Ronald Bracewell proposed[1] that technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilisations might send automated probes to other star systems capable of detecting and communicating with any appropriately advanced civilizations that they might exist. Such probes are called Bracewell probes. Bracewell included the condition that the probes would require at least a degree ...
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Saturday, March 21st, 2026
Elon Musk is determined to create a viable human civilisation on Mars and is intent on going there directly as quickly as possible (notwithstanding his slight detour through the Moon.) I think this is a mistake. I believe that there are many advantages to the creation of a base on ...
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Sunday, March 15th, 2026
Reading Nikhil Mahant, Why alien languages could be far stranger than we imagine I was pleased to note that he canvassed the possibility of communication systems that were, as he says, non-linear – but by which he really meant not language-like in the way that language is defined for philosophical ...
Posted in Language, Philosophy, Space | No Comments »
Saturday, March 14th, 2026
Current SETI efforts, with rare exceptions, concentrate on the detection of signals from ETI from deep space, and the response protocols adopted for success in this search reflect this concentration. The protocols in question can be found at the IAA site as
Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following Detection of ...
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Sunday, March 8th, 2026
Size
S Small r < 0.8rE, m < 0.5mE g[1] < 0.8
M ...
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Sunday, March 1st, 2026
The dispute over the criteria used for the categorization of celestial bodies as planets reveals either a confusion concerning the reason for a definition, or an unhappy compromise between independent reasons. The criteria adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) are that the body
is in orbit around the Sun,
has sufficient mass ...
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Friday, February 27th, 2026
The explosion in exoplanet discoveries has revealed that the Solar System is very far from a typical stellar system, and a need has arisen for a categorization of planetary types that includes far more than the kinds of planets found orbiting the Sun. To form these classification appeal has been ...
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Wednesday, February 11th, 2026
I read an article by Matt Williams in Universe Today on von Neumann probes and the consequences of accepting the plausibility of that concept for SETI strategies. (Why Would an Alien Civilization Send Out Von Neumann Probes? Lots of Reasons, says a new Study - Universe Today.) The article is ...
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Monday, November 11th, 2019
Assumptions:
IXS Basic Protocol of Operations has been followed
Extra-terrestrial intelligences (ETI) are discovered at the latest by orbital scan operations (their planet is ETIP) and are not technologically sophisticated (have no spacefaring or close observational capability)
IXS is expected to begin Contact procedures where possible
Principles:
It is the ...
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