The Alien Astronomer

I’ve noticed many news articles recently about astronomers finding signs of alien life. It reminds me of a science fiction short story that I read. I’ve forgotten who wrote it, and it is possible that I never read it but was told about it. If it sounds familiar perhaps you could post in the comments the original author.

The story really brought up an interesting thought experiment and I’ll try to paraphrase it somewhat in my own words.

It is possible for us to build bigger and bigger space telescopes. The ability to move materials into space and mine asteroids could make it easier to build them. Having zero gravity to deal with would allow them to be made very large and not having any atmosphere distorting the picture should help improve the resolution.

If we detect life on a distant planet looking at them closely with a giant space telescope could reveal some details.

Perhaps we might notice that orbiting in their solar system is a similar giant space telescope. Thinking about the possibilities we could organize the building of a giant space billboard for viewing at a great distance. Amateur astronomers could have fun viewing the billboard from the planet and if it was big enough everyone might be able to view it with the naked eye.

Our best industries could have paid advertisements displayed on it to help pay for the thing. Slogans like, “Fizzy sugary drinks add life!” and “Endeavoring to make products the kill and maim less!” could be interspersed with other messages. :D

Light Rays

From what I learned about light it acts like both a particle and a ray. From our perspective it takes it some time, maybe around 8 minutes to travel from the sun to the earth. When we look at some of the nearest stars it can take over a thousand years or more. Yet from the point of view of the light ray both the point at which it is born and the point at which it arrives at a surface remain the same time.

I’ve even heard that there are some microwave photons or light ray particles still bouncing around from the birth of the universe some 13.7 billion years ago. Some scientists mapped this as the cosmic background radiation. Thats an awfully long light ray.

A Thousand Light Years

So looking through our giant space telescope we notice that the alien civilization has also constructed a giant space billboard with equally puzzling messages. Their giant space telescope seems to be pointed right back at us. There is over a thousand light year distance between the two telescopes so everything that we are observing happened over a thousand years in the past.

Looking closely at the alien billboard one night we notice the picture of what appears to be an alien astronomer looking at the output of his telescope trained on our billboard. Getting an inspiration our astronomer patches in the video from his office onto our giant space billboard. Raising up from his workstation he waves at the alien... The alien waves back.

They both realize they have been dead for a thousand years and at that instant the universe implodes into a contradictory cosmological singularity. (Okay, I might have made that last part up). ;)

How the Observer Changes the Observed

From the point of view of both astronomers, that which they are observing is a thousand years in the past, yet from from a certain point of view the events are happening at the same moment. The big question is whether communication can happen at this level.

Thinking more conventionally, sending a signal to a space craft at a distance of ten light minutes you would expect not to get an answer for twenty minutes. Ten minutes to get to the craft and if it responds right away, another ten minutes to get back. But what if the craft was observing you at the same time you were observing it? Can communication then happen without the twenty minute lag that you would expect?

Although I don’t claim to be any expert in these issues it seems like the same type of idea that is observed in quantum entanglement at the atomic level. Entangled atoms seem to move in tandem and if one changes the spin of its elections or other characteristics the entangled particle changes as well at the same time despite the apparent distances between them.

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Just some food for thought - I hope you enjoyed reading. Special thanks to @robyneggs who did the wonderful artwork. Graphic Art Cards