RIP Cassini - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 15, 2017, 12:07:15 pm
content: Cassini just lost signal, immediately upon impact. Actually it happened 1 hour and 20 minutes ago, but the radio signal takes that long to travel to our planet. The spacecraft is destroyed. It is a triumphant but sad time for the JPL Cassini mission people, as I watched them as the signal was lost. Cassini has done its job and done it well. 20 years of a great achievement in electronics, physics and chemistry.I feel somewhat sad for the electronics components. The 0402 resistors would be pulverised. No-one know if there is any discernible electronics left. It is cruel. Do you feel for the electronics like I do?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn#/media/File:Saturn_diagram.svg

author: alanb
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 15, 2017, 02:03:10 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on September 15, 2017, 12:07:15 pmI feel sad for the poor inhabitant of Saturn who was standing underneath!

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 15, 2017, 02:30:58 pm
content: The Saturnians might be a race of robots. In which case, "Look at the way those humans treat their machines! This is not to be tolerated. Ready the invasion fleet.."

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 15, 2017, 11:50:15 pm
content: There is no life on Enceladus, despite there being warm water inside. Prove it otherwise. In fact there is not one scrap of evidence, just wild speculation. The sad thing is I have heard noted scientists say they are certain there is intelligent life on other plants - without any evidence whatsoever. Until they can prove it these nutters are not much wiser than Illuminati conspiracy theorists.

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2017, 02:23:55 am
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on September 15, 2017, 11:50:15 pmThe fact that we ourselves exist is in itself evidence to the argument for extraterrestrial life.If we accept that our planet is one of many planets of this similar size, type, composition, and solar proximity, we can make a reasoned statement that if our planet was the one selected at random from said population that it would be more likely to be a typical planet than an atypical one (bell curves etc).Therefore if we assume our planet is a typical planet of our type, then it stands to reason that a typical planet of our type is an inhabited planet of our type.Given the vast expanse of the universe the likely number of planets of our type would seem similarly vast.Put another way, with only ourselves as a single data point, we can make a reasoned argument that we are not remarkable in anyway and therefore neither should intelligent (or any) life be on celestial bodies.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 16, 2017, 03:16:53 am
content: Quote from: sleemanj on September 16, 2017, 02:23:55 amWe are just software programs. This has all been a simulation. ;-)

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2017, 09:40:06 am
content: Quote from: sleemanj on September 16, 2017, 02:23:55 amOK we are not remarkable in any way. But we should not be so pigheaded to think we are ahead of every other civilisation in the universe, if in fact any other intelligent civilisation exists. SETI has been operational since the early 1960's, but in over 50 years there has been no intelligent signals detected from other planets from any other civilisation. Nothing. Zilch. Assuming every intelligent race is on a path of self destruction and the time slot for transmitting radio waves is only 200 years, surely there must be at least one signal we could have received in the past 50 years from the myriad of planets like ours, with similar raw materials, similar environments and intelligence. Nope, not one.There is no reason we should be at leading edge in technology in the universe.To think so is idioticy. For all we know, we are alone.But everyone is entitle to their beliefs no matter how misguided and idiotic and illogical they are. There is a lot in common among American televangelists, Illuminati conspiracy theorists and lunatic scientists who make outrageous claims without any evidence whatsoever.The US government believes in intelligent life on other planets. In fact, US immigration has two lines at customs as one enters the US: US Citizens and Aliens.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2017, 10:01:25 am
content: To paraphrase Douglas Adams, Space is large, Really Really Large.Think about our first radio transmissions, and how within a century they went from multi kilowatt single channel broadcasts to a multiplexed digital QAM signal, that is shaped to look like noise in the channel, and where, without knowledge of the encoding method and the key, it is impossible to recover any data from it. then think that your signal is not aimed out, but is directed as well, in a narrow beam, so that anybody wanting to get the spillover for say the DBS satellite uplink, will have only very short blips of signal every 24 hours or so as the tiny beam goes past them, and they get a single bit of noise on a channel, almost imperceptibly different from actual noise. Then think of the sun, broadcasting wideband noise as well and drowning out this tiny blip in the background.Now consider this in reverse, trying to get a signal not beamed directly and deliberately to your direction, kept on for long periods so that it stands out against the background, and transmitted at megawatt power levels to stand out against the noise even at multi light year distances. No wonder we do not get anything, it is all seen as just noise in the received signal.

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2017, 12:07:17 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on September 17, 2017, 09:40:06 amOn the one hand you are agreeing "we are not remarkable", and then on the other hand you are saying "we are the only ones".You can't have your cake if you're going to eat it.Either we are (I would posit) infinitely remarkable if we are "the only ones" given the vastness of just our galaxy, let alone the entire observable universe.Or we are not very remarkable, and thereby others must exist and we just haven't run into each other yet, which is not unlikely, given again the inconceivable vastness of the universe.In the Milky Way galaxy alone, there are thought to be perhaps 10 Billion earth sized planets in their star's respective habitable zone, that's billion, with a B. Now how many galaxies are there... 100, 200 billion. Let's just say that we are way off on our numbers of habitable planets, let's say it's 1 habitable planet per galaxy and not the 10 billion that findings from missions such as Kepler seem to extrapolate towards (hey it's only a factor a billion), that's still 100 or 200 billion habitable planets in the universe.The numbers here are just so large as to be inconceivable.So which is more pigheaded, to claim that Earth is the only planet from 100 or 200 billion to have intelligent life on it, or to claim that it seems rather unlikely that would be the case and we probably just haven't run into anybody else yet because space is big, really, really, big.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2017, 12:46:19 pm
content: Quote from: sleemanj on September 17, 2017, 12:07:17 pmAnd the other aspect that is often overlooked - time is also really really, really big.So the question "is there life elsewhere", which implies "now", should really be "has there ever been life elsewhere".

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2017, 01:10:16 pm
content: It would be arrogant in the extreme to assume that man is the only intelligent life in the universe.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2017, 03:55:51 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on September 15, 2017, 11:50:15 pmWell, they obviously aren't just pulling it out of their banana lead sockets. By now, we know that many of the things required for life as we know it, thought to be rare and unique to Earth or simply not known elsewhere, are actually plentiful in the solar system, galaxy and universe. In short, the circumstances found on Earth, or reasonable permutations or variations of it, must be very common throughout the universe. So far, we've found life to be nothing special, other than it being the only life we know. Science isn't quite sure yet how it started exactly, but ever more evidence points towards it simply being a consequence of the circumstances and available conditions on Earth. To put it simply, scientists suspect that putting the ingredients together and letting it stew may very well be enough.This knowledge, combined with the ever greater awareness of the absolutely mindbogglingly massive size of our universe, leads to the deduction that life must exist elsewhere, and that intelligent life may very well be included in it. Even though no one can say such a thing with absolute certainty, we're at a point where concluding anything else is not in accordance with the evidence.Of course, anyone is free to prove definitively that the universe is devoid of any life, other than ours

author: StillTrying
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2017, 04:35:16 pm
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on September 17, 2017, 03:55:51 pmI'd agree, and I think life with 1 body, sensors at one end, and an even number of limbs would be a quite common arrangement, and that the bipeds with spare limbs have a higher chance to become advanced.Why are we searching distant planets for a bit of moisture, or a signal, for evidence of ET when there's saucers falling out of the sky all over the place.

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 17, 2017, 07:20:28 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on September 15, 2017, 11:50:15 pmNo, you prove your assertion. It is not the responsibility of anyone to disprove any assertion. You made the assertion not anyone else.Quote from: VK3DRB on September 15, 2017, 11:50:15 pmYou just said "There is no life on Enceladus, despite there being warm water inside." So you are the same by your standards, you are a nutter.Assertions made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

author: Electro Detective
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2017, 11:25:26 pm
content: Whoever or whatever is out there, the authorities that sent it there have an obligation to send a retrieval space craft to pick up the crashed litter,sweep up the mess and pray there are no dead or injured local inhabitants to compensate.They should prepare an explanation and sincere apology, equipped with a few boxes of donutsWe don't need irate Saturnians on our case