Could we detect a Kardeshev Three Civilization at a gigaparsec?

[Tom Mazanec]

Assuming they use Dyson Swarms or such, and don't try to make deliberate contact? Or would it be detectable but lost in the noise?

[Ronald Brak]

A gigaparsec? Can't see nuttin at a gigaparsec. Let's settle for another galaxy. Basically I guess we'd be looking for a galaxy that looked a bit wonky, that didn't match up with other galaxies. Trouble would be determining if that wonkiness were natural or artificial.

[Tom Mazanec]

If we determined it WAS artificial, what would be the cultural reaction?

[Ronald Brak]

It would be really big news for a while, everybody would say oh wow. Then people would forget about it. It would be become part of the background of life. It would be a much smaller deal than the death of Princess Diana. I think it would have a small positive effect. It would encourage people to think of the whole of humanity as an ingroup and the aliens as the outgroup and make us slightly less likely to kill each other.

[Tom Mazanec]

I wonder if VIRGOHI21 could be a K3 which has converted all its stars into Matrioshka Brains...

[eburacum45]

Strangely enough I have suggested the exact same possibility over at the OA worldbuilding group in the last few days. VIRGOHI21 is a galaxy which seems to contain very little luminous baryonic matter; is it possible that the light emitted by its stars is collected for use by an advanced civilisation?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIRGOHI21
However this galaxy seems to be involved in some sort of complex interaction with other nearby galaxies, and the explanation is probably unrelated to the effects of any advanced civilisation.

Personally I think KIII civilisations will be vanishingly rare; the technical difficulties associated with collecting all, or almost all, the energy emitted by a whole galaxy would be very great. I think that the political problems might also be great as well, although it stretches my mind to try to imagine the sort of debates that might go on in such an advanced civilisation.

However there must be many hundreds of millions of galaxies within a gigaparsec of our location; there are probably billions of galaxies in the visible universe which may contain life and intelligence. As telescopes improve thanks to adaptive optics and interferometry, it should be possible to observe these galaxies in ever greater detail.

If any advanced civilisations out there ever create any Dyson-sphere-like megastructures, or if they engage in very high energy warfare, then it is entirely possible that we will be able to detect such civilisations at great distances with telescopes which may be available shortly or in the medium-to-long term.

[Tom Mazanec]

That is where I learned of VIRGOHI21. I wonder if SETI will ever look for such civilizations...they keep looking for Type Ones. My guess is that if we get through the bottleneck to Type One, we will become a Type Three in a cosmologically short time.

[Mister Earl]

It would be really big news for a while, everybody would say oh wow. Then people would forget about it. It would be become part of the background of life. It would be a much smaller deal than the death of Princess Diana. I think it would have a small positive effect. It would encourage people to think of the whole of humanity as an ingroup and the aliens as the outgroup and make us slightly less likely to kill each other.

Don't underestimate the fringe groups. You know there's be a lot of xenophobic groups out that would go nuts over a news release like that. Not to mention the doomsday clubs. Then there's rioting, looting, ect.

[eburacum45]

VIRGOHI21 is fifty million light years away; hardly an immediate threat.
I find it difficult to believe that people would be very concerned about the possibility of life 50 Mly away, or more; but perhaps you are right.

After all these distances are incomprehensible in almost every sense. There might be some very peculiar reactions to such a discovery.

[Mister Earl]

I think there would be. Look at some of the obsurd reactions of some people to normal occurances. Volcano erupts? Throw food or people into the caldera. New weather satellite being launched? Tin-foil the entire house. High altitude airplanes? "Chemtrails". A civilization advanced enough to control an entire galaxy? I don't think there's tin foil enough for the loonies out there to handle that.

[Tom Mazanec]

My late friend Ed Langly predicted everyone would panic. but I personally know how I would react to such a discovery. After a busy day, I tuned in to Nightline on ABC late, in the middle of the show. Carl Sagan was saying something about the greatest discovery in history. Then they cut to commercials. Imagine my disappointment when I learned he was talking about the dust disk around Beta Pictoris. For a few minutes I was walking on cloud 9 to the 9th power.

[Mister Earl]

I'm sure I'd feel the same way if extraterrestrial life were found. Even if it were tiny trout-like organisms on Europa. But knowing our luck, it'd be leeches. Alien leeches. Hollywood would go nuts.

[Tom Mazanec]

Well, I emailed the suggestion of VIRGOHI21 to SETI. They replied with a form letter listing links to projects they have done and local stars they have observed. I think VIRGOHI21 is a good a candidate as Tau Ceti or any other particular star they have looked at. We are like cavemen trying to imagine what a 21st century society would be like. And interaction with nearby galaxies does not rule it out, as far as I can see. Why not look at it?

[Tom Mazanec]

OK, can anyone come up with an answer to this speculation:
1) VIRGOHI21 is a K3 civilization.
2) It is devoting one solar type star to powering an omnidiectional beacon.
3) The beacon is broadcasting a signal one hertz wide at the 21 cm line.
4) It is on for 2^32 cycles, then off for an equal period of time. Repeat ad infinitum.
Question. Could we detect it? Would we recognize it as artificial?

[Tom Mazanec]

I asked this question on the Orion's Arm mail list. The answer was basically that you could pick it up on your TV set, certainly an amateur radio telescope. I didn't know there WERE amateur radio astronomers. But I googled, found SARA, joined their email list and sent in a suggestion that someone look in this direction. Can anybody give me the coordinates of this object, in case noone there knows?
Edit: I think I googled it. It is VIRGOHI21 (RA=12h17m51s, Dec=14d46’31”, J2000)

[dgavin]

I'm sure I'd feel the same way if extraterrestrial life were found. Even if it were tiny trout-like organisms on Europa. But knowing our luck, it'd be leeches. Alien leeches. Hollywood would go nuts.

If there is Trout on Europa, it's time to go ice fishing!

[Ronald Brak]

OK, can anyone come up with an answer to this speculation:
1) VIRGOHI21 is a K3 civilization.
2) It is devoting one solar type star to powering an omnidiectional beacon.
3) The beacon is broadcasting a signal one hertz wide at the 21 cm line.
4) It is on for 2^32 cycles, then off for an equal period of time. Repeat ad infinitum.
Question. Could we detect it? Would we recognize it as artificial?

If it transmitted prime numbers, yes it would be recognized as artificial.

[Tom Mazanec]

If I were setting up such a program, I would transmit about 50 fundamental physical and mathematical constants (pi, the proton/electron mass ratio, the golden ratio, the nuclear fine structure constant, Euler's number, etc.) in binary to 32 significant places (about 10 significant digits in decimal)...we should know them to that precision by the time we civilize the Galaxy! I would do it in even spacing across the Water Hole of 1.42-1,72 GHz. Also, I would transmit at 2^8 times 1.42 GHz (about 363.6 GHz in the near submillimeter band if my math is right) a high information content "Encyclopedia Galactica" starting with Lincos and prime by prime pictures and working on up...repeat ad infinitum.