Police departments already use helicopter mounted thermal cameras, to find pot houses, fugitives, & lost people. One would think anyone with tech as advanced as the Enterprise, would have equaly as advanced thermal cameras. If our satalites can read text smaller than 1/2 an inch from space, and thats on commercial ones, let alone the military birds, they could probably scan from as far away as Mars if not further.
OK... How about this? People are visible on satellite photos anyway. so get about a dozen ultra-high resolution cameras, across the EM spectrum. (Visible, infrared, x-ray, etc.). Get a REALLY powerful computer... Feed all of this data in together, then run a pattern matching algorithm across the entire combination. If you have good enough camera resolution, and enough processing power, you should be able to identify known forms of life. Even specific individuals if you've got a profile for them.
One more thing....If you had a long wave Kirlian energy scanner, and it could determine living and non-living... Then you'd have a pretty good scanner at hand! Living and non-living things continuously emit Kirlian energy... And it's shown to be different for plants, animals and non-living things...
Detecting individual life forms... Probably longer wave infrared as it travels further and expanding the wave to 'see' what it's bounced off, uv reflection, radio waves and x-rays... They all would pass through or be deflected from a life form... Then there's the emission by plants and animals of their own energy, detected at longer waves, the Kirlian Aura emitted by all living things and possibly all other objects with different wave lengths.... One more thing...
Well there is also the decision tree approach... Using a database reference of known life forms and the environments they thrive in, matching with the parameters of the scanned environment, an exoplanet, then a course of deduction...the atmospheric content, radiation, emitted gases, life giving gases, elements and compounds detected... Amongst things like that... Then the actual detection... Then of course detection of technology like radio waves, infrared, light, audio...
I like the sonar idea though you wouldn't really have to scan the planet, you can scan the objects orbiting the planet. Are there any non-natural objects orbiting the planet (and yes you would have to define non-natural object)? I like the probe idea but on Star Trek they had scanners for that (i.e. are there any broadcast signals coming from the planet i.e. similar to analog television signals)? And then a visual flyby inspection ;).
Handwavium, theinquisitor. A better idea would be to sense the microbursts of energy that chemical activity give off. This could be sensed with nothing more exotic than ordinary electromagnetic energies, lke light or radar. The exact frequencies, polarizations, etc, and modes, like radar or even magnetic field sensing... or, better yet, a combination, is more plausible. We do it now, at close range. fMRI and magnetic spectroscopy (a relative) plus radar... no handwavium needed. Life is chemical.
"A sophisticated array of charged cluster quark resonance scanners provide detailed biological data across orbital distances. When used in con-junction with optical and chemical analysis sensors, the lifeform analysis software is typically able to extrapolate a bioform's gross structure and deduce the basic chemical composition."
I didn't understand the reply to the valid statement that acoustic information won't be available in space. Advanced receptor technology surely won't make it detectable if it's not there. So the "triangulation" point probably was that sound waves might covary with some other physical events which made them detectable indirectly - like the bodily movements of a "listener". That might happen to be the case, but there's nothing the Star Trek guys can do technologically to make it so.
On second thought, here is a simple idea: They could shoot a space probe into the atmosphere that carries a microphone and transmits the local sound signals into radio signals for their spaceship. That would indeed "make it the case" that there is a "listener" there on that planet.
Movement???? No dude -- the production of complex molecues, such as methane, that would otherwise oridinarily break down long before entering the atmosphere. "Dead planets" would not foster complex chemical productions without massive amounts of heat (such as volcanoes). But massive amounts of heat would preclude life as well.
Indeed, but the Star Trek conception of lifeform sensors are able to detect life on an individual scale, even a single being in a spacesuit on an uninhabitable world, or on another ship. The detection of the presence of methane in the atmosphere wouldn't by itself allow the discernment of individual lifeforms and their locations.
@theinquisitor I suspect with a sufficiently complex collection of particle and EM detectors, you could pick out large life-forms fairly reliably. You can see humans on sattelite photographs after all. So with enough computing power and inputs picking out known lifeforms, or unknown ones which bear a close resemblance would be possible. But it becomes somewhat questionable finding completely unknown forms of life...
@anim8er2 but its so tiny compared to any sort of electrical activity of the atmosphere (aka lightning) that it probably wouldnt be the best way to approach it since it would most likely just look like noise
plants collect light from the sun and turn it into chemical energy to feed themselves. so forests look dark from the sky, but their surface temperature is lower than you would expect from a dead object that has the same absorption spectrum. plants on other planets might not be green, it depends on the color of the starlight they get, but they will also have this property. the same is true for solar panels, they dont heat up as much as you would expect from their color and the radiation they get.
so aliens could definitively detect life on earth once they get a multiwavelength image of our planet with a high enough resolution to differentiate between oceans and continents.
but the spectrum of the atmosphere can be detected much easier and from longer distances.
Indeed. They do sometimes scan for vegetation, although most of the time they're looking for humanoids. Identifying individual life signs and their location and species would prove more challenging.
i like how when he sings, everybody on the bridge looks at him in a funny way.
and that cool snap/clap with the fist thing that he does. my geometry teacher can do that and he does it a lot. and were still amazed each time he does it.
Police departments already use helicopter mounted thermal cameras, to find pot houses, fugitives, & lost people. One would think anyone with tech as advanced as the Enterprise, would have equaly as advanced thermal cameras. If our satalites can read text smaller than 1/2 an inch from space, and thats on commercial ones, let alone the military birds, they could probably scan from as far away as Mars if not further.
ernestmac13 1 month ago
OK... How about this? People are visible on satellite photos anyway. so get about a dozen ultra-high resolution cameras, across the EM spectrum. (Visible, infrared, x-ray, etc.). Get a REALLY powerful computer... Feed all of this data in together, then run a pattern matching algorithm across the entire combination. If you have good enough camera resolution, and enough processing power, you should be able to identify known forms of life. Even specific individuals if you've got a profile for them.
KuraIthys 2 months ago
One more thing....If you had a long wave Kirlian energy scanner, and it could determine living and non-living... Then you'd have a pretty good scanner at hand! Living and non-living things continuously emit Kirlian energy... And it's shown to be different for plants, animals and non-living things...
ThexBorg 5 months ago
Detecting individual life forms... Probably longer wave infrared as it travels further and expanding the wave to 'see' what it's bounced off, uv reflection, radio waves and x-rays... They all would pass through or be deflected from a life form... Then there's the emission by plants and animals of their own energy, detected at longer waves, the Kirlian Aura emitted by all living things and possibly all other objects with different wave lengths.... One more thing...
ThexBorg 5 months ago
Well there is also the decision tree approach... Using a database reference of known life forms and the environments they thrive in, matching with the parameters of the scanned environment, an exoplanet, then a course of deduction...the atmospheric content, radiation, emitted gases, life giving gases, elements and compounds detected... Amongst things like that... Then the actual detection... Then of course detection of technology like radio waves, infrared, light, audio...
ThexBorg 5 months ago
I like the sonar idea though you wouldn't really have to scan the planet, you can scan the objects orbiting the planet. Are there any non-natural objects orbiting the planet (and yes you would have to define non-natural object)? I like the probe idea but on Star Trek they had scanners for that (i.e. are there any broadcast signals coming from the planet i.e. similar to analog television signals)? And then a visual flyby inspection ;).
Cersia23 9 months ago
@ZnaxQue, it's edited, but not by me. It's from an animated gif. The Enterprise computer actually runs on Linux.
theinquisitor 1 year ago
bsod lol
luckystrke 2 years ago
Handwavium, theinquisitor. A better idea would be to sense the microbursts of energy that chemical activity give off. This could be sensed with nothing more exotic than ordinary electromagnetic energies, lke light or radar. The exact frequencies, polarizations, etc, and modes, like radar or even magnetic field sensing... or, better yet, a combination, is more plausible. We do it now, at close range. fMRI and magnetic spectroscopy (a relative) plus radar... no handwavium needed. Life is chemical.
RyuDarragh 2 years ago
According to the Star Trek Technical manual:
"A sophisticated array of charged cluster quark resonance scanners provide detailed biological data across orbital distances. When used in con-junction with optical and chemical analysis sensors, the lifeform analysis software is typically able to extrapolate a bioform's gross structure and deduce the basic chemical composition."
Which seems to mean nothing at all.
theinquisitor 2 years ago
I didn't understand the reply to the valid statement that acoustic information won't be available in space. Advanced receptor technology surely won't make it detectable if it's not there. So the "triangulation" point probably was that sound waves might covary with some other physical events which made them detectable indirectly - like the bodily movements of a "listener". That might happen to be the case, but there's nothing the Star Trek guys can do technologically to make it so.
langengro 2 years ago
On second thought, here is a simple idea: They could shoot a space probe into the atmosphere that carries a microphone and transmits the local sound signals into radio signals for their spaceship. That would indeed "make it the case" that there is a "listener" there on that planet.
;-)
langengro 2 years ago
"They could shoot a space probe into the atmosphere that carries a microphone"
Good idea. Makes more sense that putting everything down to "subspace" which seems to be the explanation for everything in Star Trek.
theinquisitor 2 years ago
Movement???? No dude -- the production of complex molecues, such as methane, that would otherwise oridinarily break down long before entering the atmosphere. "Dead planets" would not foster complex chemical productions without massive amounts of heat (such as volcanoes). But massive amounts of heat would preclude life as well.
websnarf 2 years ago
Indeed, but the Star Trek conception of lifeform sensors are able to detect life on an individual scale, even a single being in a spacesuit on an uninhabitable world, or on another ship. The detection of the presence of methane in the atmosphere wouldn't by itself allow the discernment of individual lifeforms and their locations.
theinquisitor 2 years ago
@theinquisitor I suspect with a sufficiently complex collection of particle and EM detectors, you could pick out large life-forms fairly reliably. You can see humans on sattelite photographs after all. So with enough computing power and inputs picking out known lifeforms, or unknown ones which bear a close resemblance would be possible. But it becomes somewhat questionable finding completely unknown forms of life...
KuraIthys 2 months ago
I would think that the electrical activity of a nervous system would be an obvious thing to detect.
anim8er2 2 years ago
Yeah possibly. It's small and would be difficult to detect but it's there.
theinquisitor 2 years ago
@anim8er2 but its so tiny compared to any sort of electrical activity of the atmosphere (aka lightning) that it probably wouldnt be the best way to approach it since it would most likely just look like noise
mshaw88 1 year ago
plants collect light from the sun and turn it into chemical energy to feed themselves. so forests look dark from the sky, but their surface temperature is lower than you would expect from a dead object that has the same absorption spectrum. plants on other planets might not be green, it depends on the color of the starlight they get, but they will also have this property. the same is true for solar panels, they dont heat up as much as you would expect from their color and the radiation they get.
kurtilein3 2 years ago
... continued
so aliens could definitively detect life on earth once they get a multiwavelength image of our planet with a high enough resolution to differentiate between oceans and continents.
but the spectrum of the atmosphere can be detected much easier and from longer distances.
kurtilein3 2 years ago
Indeed. They do sometimes scan for vegetation, although most of the time they're looking for humanoids. Identifying individual life signs and their location and species would prove more challenging.
theinquisitor 2 years ago
th end made me laugh!
Anthonyk312 2 years ago
It had to be done :D
theinquisitor 2 years ago
i like how when he sings, everybody on the bridge looks at him in a funny way.
and that cool snap/clap with the fist thing that he does. my geometry teacher can do that and he does it a lot. and were still amazed each time he does it.
Anthonyk312 2 years ago
can you tell me what episode that's from. pleeease.
Anthonyk312 2 years ago
That's from the first TNG movie, Generations. The reason he's acting that way is because he recently got his emotion chip installed.
theinquisitor 2 years ago
that explains so much.
Anthonyk312 2 years ago
That was nicely done.
grenangle 2 years ago
Thanks.
theinquisitor 2 years ago
This is the best podcast, without doubt!
freedom0f5peech 2 years ago
Indeed. That's one thing I'm not skeptical about.
theinquisitor 2 years ago