back to article Interstellar Bebo spamgasm targeted at 'water world'

Astronomers believe that there may be a "water world" capable of harbouring intelligent alien life orbiting a star just 20 lightyears from Earth. Unfortunately, it appears that the first communication any aliens will receive from the human race will be a multimedia compilation assembled by Bebo users. News of the possible …

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  1. Secretgeek
    Happy

    Is it Friday?

    It feels like Friday all of a sudden...is it just me?

    A very distinct Friday sensation going here.

  2. Martin Lyne

    HELLO EARTHLINGS

    WE COME FROM THE SYSTEM YOU KNOW AS GLIESE.

    TAKE US TO NICOLE, FOR WE HAVE A NEW REALITY TELEVISION PROGRAMME THAT WE THINK HER INABILITY TO GRASP NEW CONCEPTS AND EXTRAVERT PERSONALITY WOULD MESH WELL WITH.

    OUR TELEVISION EXECUTIVES ARE OPEN TO ALL GREEN SKY THINKING AND WILL SURELY STEAL ALL OF YOUR VALUABLE AIRTIME IN THE NEAR FUTURE!

    WE MAY SEEK TO REINVISAGE 'THE OFFICE' IN OUR OWN, WATERY, BOOMING VOICED FASHION THOUGH..

    UNTIL NEXT TIME, HUMANS.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ia Ia Cthulu Fhtagn

    Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtan

  4. Aaron Jacobs
    Alien

    I for one...

    Welcome our jellyfish overlords

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    'blobominations'

    The most awesome word yet. I intend to use it wherever possible.

  6. Alastair McKinstry

    More like 2 G

    Gl 581d is about 7 Earth masses, but due to the larger radius, the gravity is more like 2g.

    This means it would be tiring for us, but not a problem. Water-based creatures have no problems with it.

    One important bit about "deep oceans" is "no continents". There is a maximum height for mountains, beyond which the pressure of the weight of the mountain melts the rock underneath. This means mountains would be no more than 20 km or so off the ocean surface, while the ocean could be 100km deep. No continents or islands, no monkeys swinging in the trees.

    Regards

    Alastair McKinstry

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Gahhhhh...stupid scientists...

    ooh the 3rd planet is to hot for life?

    Why? What evidence do you have?

    Juts because earths inhabitants have adapted to out climate and ecosystem, doesn't mean that's it.

    There may be super inteligent beings out the living in molten lava, "beathing" liquid nitrogen, looking at earth going, nah, nothing could live there, to bloody cold and look at all that toxic water.

    But I guess we are the centre of the Universe after all.

  8. E
    Happy

    Cool!

    God provides! When we've completely fished out the oceans here we can go there to harvest and eat the aliens!

  9. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Coat

    Looking at most user generated content

    leads to the unavoidable conclusion that intelligent life is going extinct already.

  10. Luis Ogando
    Alien

    Gravity..

    Er... Land-dwelling lifeforms could exist in seven times Earth's gravity. They would just evolve to take the extra forces into account. If (or WHEN!!) our gravity-loving overlords arrive on our humble speck of rock, they would feel nice and light and, eventually, start to weaken - as Earth astro/cosmonauts do in space - thus making it easy for Earth's resistance fighters to regain control.

    Don't know the maths for water-based sentients, but you can bet your bottom dollar that they've got big teeth and eat Loch Ness Monsters for brekkie!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    At least...

    At least we didn't send them Kevin Costner. They would have nuked us to oblivion without even a second thought.

  12. A. Lewis
    Happy

    Arf!

    Nice one...

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Bebo are NOT the first

    Has no-one else heard of the broadcasts made by SETI?

    What about the radio and TV transmissions that leak off the surface of our horribly dry planet all the time?

    If they are less than 50 years behind us technologically (or ahead of us) then they've picked those up already.

    So the Bebo stuff will go completely unnoticed. They're already on their way...

  14. Pierre
    Alien

    It's always fun

    It's always fun to see how everyone seems to assume that life *must* be of the water-and-carbon-based variety. Hey, there couldn't be intelligent life there anyway as it's mainly a waterworld, how would bipeds survive?

    Needless to say, the probability of any lifeform co-existing with us in the same timeframe is pretty low, now they would have to communicate using the same physical media (and the same sensory systems). So all in all, the chances of poor aliens being hit by Bebo spam is negligible. And it's that much crap that Beboers won't be slinging at their earthly siblings (including me). So carry on, by all means! Actually, we should probably send the whole Bebo servers in outer space, to, you know, increase the chances of the message reaching its alien target. Maybe Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, Twitter et al. want to join in (or "out", in this case)?

  15. Ben
    Pirate

    @ AC

    Yes, Bebo won't be the first announcement that we're over here that they receive. It may well settle their debate about intelligent life, however.

    Mine's a pirate ship for ye vast ocean his noodly goodness has seen fit to provide us with. Ramen.

  16. Christoph

    @ E

    We'll be too late. The Japanese will have got there first and turned the whole lot into sushi.

  17. Bounty

    Sure

    they could have monkeys. They could swing from lightweight hollow tree's growing from gigantic patches of alge or something.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    @ Lewis Page

    Obviously it's Friday, Journalists lunch (15 mins longer than BOFH,), back to office, knock off a quick article before home time.

  19. E
    Happy

    @Christoph

    Excellent. I love sushi!

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: Gahhhhh...stupid scientists...

    The thing with scientists is, they've discovered that most materials, when deep inside molten lava, tend to be very unstable. Ie, they burn, melt, or otherwise dissolve, mix, recombine with something else. All the time. Heat helps atoms move around.

    It seems it's very difficult to imagine something evolving into a super-intelligent being when starting as a bit of protein that has trouble keeping its molecules together to turn itself into a proper bacteria.

    Kind of the same with liquid nitrogen: when your molecules can't move because they're frozen solid, they, hum, don't evolve into anything.

    Oh, it might be possible to be *created* to live in such an environment. But to evolve in it from scratch, assuming the same Laws of Physics have been ratified everywhere in our Universe, is most unlikely.

  21. Sordid Details
    Coat

    An underwater culture

    If it's anything like the one on Naboo then I suggest we attack first, wipe all the slimy beggars out, and start with a clean slate. How's that Genesis device coming on...?

  22. Will Shaw
    Unhappy

    It's all about the turnaround time.

    Given that it's a foregone conclusion that any intelligent being no matter how benign and enlightened would be driven into a murderous genocidal rage by Nicole and her like, I suspect the exact length of our remaining time pivots on whether they have already have a vast interstellar invasion force prepped and ready to go. With a bit of luck, I may be already have shuffled from this mortal coil by the time the first dropships land and spew forth enraged death-ray wielding tentaclospawn who systemically reduce the biosphere to a steaming puddle of protoplasmic gloop before stamping around a bit, shouting angrily, relieving themselves and buggering off home. And you all thought the budget was bad news.

  23. Big Duke Six
    Pirate

    Invasion? No problem...

    Chuck Norris would have the lot of 'em - tentacles, magma-breath, 2G-defying muscles, you name it.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Bebo?

    As we all know anyone who uses bebo is highly intelligent represent the feelings of a large section of humanity and every one is very intrested in what they say, i feel that this is a great way to greet our new alien overlords, it may even get the more intelligent ones of us taken off to "a better place"

    Mines the one with the copy of miss protoplasma 2009 in the pocket

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