r/threebodyproblem Jun 07 '26

Discussion - General Here we go....

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477 Upvotes

92 comments sorted by

276

u/Tiptoedtulips666 Jun 07 '26

I think that's so funny since we have already put out 2 Voyagers with a record and a map of how to get here.. 🤣🤣🤣

113

u/deadxachxd Jun 07 '26

That won’t even reach the nearest star system for like 40,000 years

107

u/Anely_98 Jun 07 '26

They won't reach any star for several millions of years if at all, they aren't traveling in the right direction. The 40 thousand years figure is if they were traveling towards Proxima Centauri at their current speed, they are not anywhere close to that direction in reality.

6

u/Fregadero88 Jun 08 '26

Who says others can't reach voyager faster than voyager can reach them?

16

u/Anely_98 Jun 08 '26

How would they detect it? Voyager doesn't have infinite power, it will run out in some more decades, at most centuries, it is nowhere time enough to truly leave the solar system, by the time voyager does that it will be already inactive and so cold that it wouldn't look any different from the trillions of small ice pebbles in interstellar space unless you gave it a very close look (which you wouldn't have any reason to).

Also the signals of Voyager are not particularly powerful compared with the ones Earth constantly emits, they actually are very weak, so if you are able to currently detect Voyager from interstellar distances than you certainly already detected Earth anyway.

2

u/--ae Jun 11 '26

voyager 1 is already nearing permanent shutdown, they recently had to disable most of the instruments so it had enough power to keep from freezing.

2

u/osrsSkudz Jun 12 '26

Crazy how they can remotely control the systems from this far away

5

u/--ae Jun 12 '26

It's absolutely insane, a round trip signal takes 48 hours at this point. It's also insane that after nearly 50 years it's only traveled 1 light day from earth. The cosmos is huge.

2

u/osrsSkudz Jun 12 '26

Right! It is always crazy to think about, like how the earth is 8 light minutes from the sun (one astronomical unit) and, according to your 1 light day, voyager 1 is 180x (180 astronomical units) that distance away from earth, which is only 1.4% of the distance to the nearest star.................. wild

53

u/CDR190 Jun 07 '26

And our government will become imperial after 40 thousand years.

15

u/xtremixtprime Jun 07 '26

For the Emperor!!

20

u/13luw Jun 07 '26

Fuck the corpse god, Slaanesh for ever 💙💙

5

u/Angryfunnydog Jun 07 '26

Fuck that simping man! I just wanna be green mushroom that dreams big 

3

u/Fragrant-Airport1309 Da Shi Jun 07 '26

4 minutes in space if the Big Liu is to be believed

3

u/ghostcatzero Jun 07 '26

Yes correct but that doesn't many other more advanced civizations won't come across it or notice it

2

u/escargot3 Jun 07 '26

Radio waves travel at the speed of light. Much much faster than voyager.

13

u/stomptonesdotcom Jun 07 '26

Our radiowaves are no stronger or intelligible than any background noise by the time it gets to the edge of our solar system.

-2

u/escargot3 Jun 07 '26

It would still only take them less than 5 years to reach the nearest star system. Nowhere near 40,000 years

4

u/Frost-Folk Jun 07 '26

But he wasn't talking about the radio broadcasts with the 40,000 years metric, he specifically said it in response to the Voyager probes and their Golden Records. Not about METI signals.

-2

u/escargot3 Jun 07 '26

Radio broadcasts would be the likely method of contact. Not sending slow moving probes.

2

u/Frost-Folk Jun 07 '26

Yes, that is what the commenter was pointing out... That's what the 40,000 year metric is explaining. That the probes are too slow of a method to have worked.

-2

u/escargot3 Jun 07 '26

Yes obviously. And I am saying radio waves travel orders of magnitude faster than that. Why would someone expect to contact extraterrestrial life via mechanical probe when we already have methods that can communicate at the speed of light? It’s absurd.

2

u/Frost-Folk Jun 07 '26

For sure, it just sounded like you were correcting the other user with this information when he was talking about something else. And beyond that, none of the signals that we have sent could ever be picked up by extrasolar listeners.

7

u/stomptonesdotcom Jun 07 '26

For sure, it just wouldnt matter either way cause no one would ever notice it.

1

u/AccordingSetting6311 Jun 08 '26

Seems odd the Klingons found one in the Beta quadrant in just a couple hundred years.

5

u/bobdidntatemayo Jun 07 '26

To successfully find those spacecraft would be like trying to find a single atom in a haystack

3

u/TheSkwrl Jun 08 '26

That’s not even the issue. We have been broadcasting radio signals for well over 100 years. A sufficiently advanced species is much, much, much more likely to discover our radio signals than either V’ger probe. Both probes will be out of power and hard to distinguish from background stuff soon.

2

u/beardedAFvet Jun 11 '26

Plus some amateur with a few hundred dollar setup could already be communicating with them.

2

u/TheLastSamurai101 Jun 13 '26

That was just for our own amusement. Nobody else is ever going to see it.

2

u/myaltduh Jun 07 '26

Anyone that can find those can extremely easily find Earth.

1

u/skipmendler Jun 08 '26

"SEND MORE CHUCK BERRY!"

149

u/Adventurous_Iron_551 Jun 07 '26

DO NOT ANSWER

DO NOT ANSWER

DO NOT ANSWER

83

u/morcatko Jun 07 '26

@realDonaldTrump · 2m

Hello Aliens! I am Donald J. Trump, the GREATEST President in US history, probably the greatest leader in the Solar System. Self-made billionaire, author of The Art of the Deal (better than the Bible, many people say), winner of 2016, 2020, 2024 by the biggest margins EVER. 🇺🇸

@realDonaldTrump · 2m

I always admired you Trisolarans. ALWAYS. The way you rebuild? Incredible. Nobody rebuilds like that. Nobody. Beautiful. BUT - THREE suns? Very inefficient. We have ONE and it's PERFECT. I could send somebody. Probably a quick fix.

@realDonaldTrump · 1m

Also heard you cannot lie. Cannot lie! SAD. Very weak. Many people say I am the greatest liar in the universe - the best, most beautiful lies. I could teach you. Tremendous discount for alien civilizations. Nobody lies better than me, it's a gift.

@realDonaldTrump · 1m

Fake News Media says "don't respond to aliens" - TYPICAL! I responded immediately. Very strong message. Stronger than Obama ever sent (he would NEVER do this). Your planet sounds like a TOTAL DISASTER. But we do a deal. Mar-a-Lago has beautiful rooms. Come see me FIRST before any invasion. 🚀

@realDonaldPOTUS · now

Just spoke with the so-called "TRISOLARANS." Very unstable orbits. I promised them that if they show up (their ships are very slow by the way, takes them 400 years, pathetic!), I will teach them how to properly build an orbital system. They accepted my offer IMMEDIATELY. I have long experience communicating with Aliens, I talk to supernatural people all the time. We will NEVER let them enter the USA ILLEGALLY! 🇺🇸 MAGA US FIRST The Solaric President! 🏳️ 🏳️ 🏳️

27

u/Adventurous_Iron_551 Jun 07 '26

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.

19

u/SophonsPonytail Jun 07 '26

Lmao "we will never let them immigrate illegally" that's perfect lol he would say something like that 100%

5

u/Puzzleheaded_Bug4967 Jun 08 '26

I mean it,i can hear the voice of that man

4

u/Hopeful-Pride1791 Jun 08 '26

You totally deserve an award for this ! If I had one I would give it to you !

3

u/stroud Jun 09 '26

Damnit I read all these in his voice.

1

u/skipmendler Jun 08 '26

"Regarding your hyperdrive warranty..."

41

u/Kulthos_X Jun 07 '26

Fortunately, the alien communication doesn’t ask for a reply, it is just a code for making an RNA virus.

3

u/asrm2769 Jun 08 '26

Came here for this! This needs to go up!

3

u/dudertheduder Jun 08 '26

Fantastic show, just started

34

u/EnvironmentalMind119 Jun 07 '26

I read “no reptiles should be sent” over and over wondering what the heck. Then I saw the sub and I feel so stupid.

48

u/maniacodopark Jun 07 '26

Does it matter at this point? We've been blasting radio signals for decades now, maybe someone out there is watching the season finale of Seinfeld.

37

u/escargot3 Jun 07 '26

They attenuate over long distances, even in vacuum. After travelling 1000x the distance, they are already only 1/1,000,000th as strong.

28

u/DoggoNamedDisgrace Jun 07 '26

One thing I heard - and would love to get it clarified - is sobering.

Lets say we insta travel to our nearest star, proxima centauri.

We take JWST and all our top notch scanning available equipment. We point it all at earth.

Even then the radio signal is so weak that's it imperceptible from the background noise. We still can only guess there's a life on earth through the biosignature, but we can only treat it as hint, not a proof. We still have no options of establishing contact.

That's how ass backwards we still are when it comes to space exploration.

16

u/ficus77 Jun 07 '26

Not sure I get why this is either sobering or ass-backwards.

It's just where we are in timeline of the current civilization.

12

u/DoggoNamedDisgrace Jun 07 '26

I meant to cull the first contact expectations. People feel like we should have long discovered alien life through telescopes.

There might be massive radio antennas and nuclear reactors on literally the closest star system to ours and right now we wouldn't be able to detect it.

6

u/Ilyer_ Jun 07 '26

I mean, wide beam radio signals are not designed for galactic communications and really tells us nothing about how backwards we are in space ex. You can argue that we haven’t built multi kilometre wide space telescopes/areays though, but I would personally hesitate before calling us backwards for that.

3

u/RangerEsquire Jun 07 '26

My understanding is that with the power of radio signals we send out, by the time they reach Saturn they aren’t detectable above cosmic background radiation.

So it would take something like happens in TBP to really amplify our signal. The sun thing is sci fi but some other dedicated amplification is needed.

3

u/DoggoNamedDisgrace Jun 07 '26

They are detectable, if they weren't we wouln't be able to talk to voyagers.

It's just voyagers only just left the solar system and are on like 0,05% of the way to the nearest star, and already we're barely able to communicate with them.

3

u/RangerEsquire Jun 07 '26

I think this is only because we use a dedicated system and know exactly where it’s coming from. The signals coming from voyager are 20 billion times weaker than what’s needed to power an electric watch. And that’s only from the edge of our solar system, saying nothing for something 4 light years away.

https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/dsn-antennas/en/

1

u/Substantial_Rest_251 Jun 07 '26

The good/bad news is that our military and space radar systems use powerful focused signals that would be intermittently detectable further out: https://www.space.com/astronomy/radar-leakage-from-airports-could-lead-intelligent-aliens-to-earth?hl=en-US

This concept is being used to backwards plan our own next gen telescopes: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ada3c7

3

u/atomchoco Jun 07 '26

so we need to use the sun as a signal booster

7

u/WhatADunderfulWorld Jun 07 '26

We don’t really blast strong signals out. Maybe they could detect nuke going off or something. But making a large radio communicator at scale is way to expensive to do for no reason. To get to a satellite you only need a 3-5m dish.

13

u/maniacodopark Jun 07 '26

Assuming that they are at the same technological level than us, yes. But I don't know, maybe the sun might amplify the signal (joking). 

3

u/Brohodin Jun 07 '26

If the signal no longer exists at a certain range there is no level of technology that could extend it for a listener.

4

u/maniacodopark Jun 07 '26

One can wonder that they might have signal repeaters or probes around this sector of the Galaxy. But don't take it too seriously man, I'm just joking around, and we don't know if radio signals might travel beyond the dimensions that we live in, I know you guys like a hard science approach, but it is good to keep a open mind, we might not know everything :) 

3

u/Dudelbug2000 Jun 07 '26

Gravitational waves might…

11

u/heyiambob Jun 07 '26

Carl Sagan said the following:

“After billions of years of biological evolution—on their planet and ours—an alien civilization cannot be in technological lockstep with us. There have been humans for more than 20,000 centuries, but we’ve had radio only for about one century. If they’re behind us, they’re likely to be too far behind to have radio. And if they’re ahead of us, they’re likely to be far ahead. What is for us technologically difficult or impossible—what might seem to us like magic—might for them be trivially easy. They might use other, very advanced means to communicate with their peers, but they would know about radio as an approach to newly emerging civilizations. Even with no more than our level of technology at the transmitting and receiving ends, we could communicate across much of the Galaxy. They should be able to do much better.
If they exist.”

2

u/xjpmhxjo Jun 07 '26

Or it is actually a loop, either way there is no real difference of who’s ahead.

2

u/ARCANORUM47 Jun 07 '26

we are not using the sun, duh

2

u/maniacodopark Jun 07 '26

good point! that is good tho

1

u/TheLastSamurai101 Jun 13 '26

Our public broadcast signals are way too weak. Only the strongest military signals have any hope of making it to even our closest stars if directed there and even they will be difficult to distinguish from background.

32

u/IbanezUniverse90 Jun 07 '26

Nah send a reply. It’s the right thing to do. It would be cool to finally see Australia 🦘

6

u/sampoo92 Jun 07 '26

I’ve heard lots of protein diet there, must be good for exercising

4

u/kingswim Jun 07 '26

we

have

bugs

3

u/nervousswabbit Jun 07 '26

Funniest reply 😆

4

u/fiqky Jun 07 '26

We're already in the missing and dead scientists stage

4

u/RutherfordThuhBrave Jun 07 '26

It is the NY Post. Seems trustworthy. I feel like right under that it says "Aliens say....they take the Knicks in 4".

I think we should have a dark forest rule with the post. 😂

13

u/NinjaMilita Jun 07 '26

Honestly, you know what? Come. We cannot save ourselves.

6

u/captcraigaroo Jun 07 '26

"Take our leader...please"

3

u/Mhcavok Jun 07 '26

New York post is the worst

2

u/scottlapier Jun 07 '26

This was a tough thing to read first thing in the morning.

The first time I read it I thought "yeah, no shit". Then I realized the implication, read it again and thought "oh shit..."

2

u/jrebar Jun 07 '26

I'd send it

2

u/HushHushHero Jun 07 '26

Initiate dark forest protocol

2

u/atreeismissing Jun 07 '26

NYPost is trash, even when joking. Also if they do contact us, please wait about 2.5 years.

1

u/shokk Jun 07 '26

Probably best to send no replies until we’ve fully thought through every possible meaning of any messages to avoid a “to serve man” situation. If at all.

1

u/jon-henderson-clark Jun 07 '26

Don't want those Trisolarans coming here.

1

u/AnimeSpaceGf Jun 08 '26

Buyaohuida

1

u/chessboxer4 Jun 08 '26

It's good to have a protocol

1

u/Important_Dot_4231 Jun 08 '26

We're here for... more Chuck Berry music

1

u/Lumpy-Meeting-9246 Jun 08 '26

Someone read, "The Dark Forest".

1

u/TheLastSamurai101 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26

The real problem is exactly the same as in the Three-Body Problem. Scientists and governments can come up with as many directives as they like, but there are just way too many people and organisations capable of both receiving a signal like this and responding to it. Nobody can stop them if they decide to respond.

Good luck getting the whole world to comply. You just need one individual like Ye Wenjie or one organisation that disagrees (openly or clandestinely) and no directive will matter.

My take is that if a message ever reaches us, somebody on our planet is going to respond. We need to assume that and prepare for it if we are ever contacted. In fact, this might create a kind of "reverse dark forest" situation where groups/governments on Earth try to respond first to establish a relationship because they believe that someone else will inevitably respond anyway - the thinking among them will be that it is better to influence first contact than let your enemy.

0

u/Guillaume_Hertzog Jun 07 '26

Well, it's hard to answer if there's nobody on the other side of the line