How to get a probe into a distant future?

[lugge]

OK, I've been lately thinking about a science story a lot.
Well, its just a thought experiment, I'll never write this story 'cause it's boring, I'm lazy and I'm a bad writer ;-)

However, important for the story is a human device (some kind of probe/abandoned ship) floating around in space in a distant future. Very distant, about 4 billion years...

Now the problem is:
this may work in Stargate SG-1, but in RL a human-made device wouldn't last for so long. Microchips, solar panels, propulsion would not be operational in 4 billion years from now.

So what plausible way would there be to get such a device in this future?
I guess: none

I thought about some "stasis field" but this would be a plot device with some tecno-babble, no hard-scifi.

And: what time do you think can a human probe last?

[DrLicor]

i think this is a great article for your questions  

https://www.quora.com/With-our-current-technology-how-long-could-we-make-a-space-probe-like-Voyager-last-before-it-would-shut-down-lose-contact-with-us 

[andrewas]

Auto repair system. The probe was carrying out a long term observation so it was deployed on a suitable asteroid and equipped to mine the rock and build spare parts. The humans never bothered to turn it off, so by now it's converted the entire asteroid into discarded components which it endlessly recycles, and it still sends it's observations back to where Earth used to be once a week.

[kerbiloid]

The most ancient mineral survived since the Earth formation 4 bln years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zircon

They can engrave pixels or so.

[radonek]

Relativistic effects. Near-lightspeed travel is obvious, but close encounter with strong gravity field would do as well. Exploration vehicle stuck on low orbit around black hole could pass a lot of time without really noticing. Would have to be pretty big black hole though, and those are hard to come by if you don't feel like traveling to center of galaxy.

Other than that, I'd also stick with some kind self repairing system. "Replacing components" does not sound reliable enough to me, not on this kind of timescale. Maybe some nanotechnological  smart matter, but you'd have to design extraordinarily resilient information storage mechanism to survive that long without mutating to hell and back like, say, DNA would. Any of this need energy, and where do you get energy source lasting for billions of years? Proton-decay powered reactors does not sound very plausible to me :-) so I have to go shopping for external sources. Somehow harvesting energy from young main sequence star would be a way, but then you need some controlling intelligence for stationkeeping. Well, you probably need one anyway to resolve unexpected situations. You know, all that stuff flying around, curious stars coming for a closer look, GRB hits, nearby supernovaes, empires coming (and going), aliens stopping by to check on things. You can call such device "unattended" but certainly not "abandoned". Anyway, this brings back problem of information resiliency and then some. I wouldn't say this is unsolvable, but it certainly makes looking for big black holes sound like enticing option.

 

[Starman4308]

Unless one can subcontract the whole "fling probe into the distant future" thing to Aku, I'd have to agree that abusing relativity is the best way to go about it. The question is: where does one get a convenient black hole or near-lightspeed velocities to accomplish that with?

When it comes to information mutation, however, one could plausibly design multiple redundant backup information copies which are actively scanned periodically; if you have 100 copies, the chance that 51/100 have had a bit flipped is almost negligible. The primary issue with DNA is that most cells retain only one or two copies, and oftentimes cells will use destructive repair mechanisms such as NHEJ (Non-Homologous End Joining).

And yes, I wrote this mostly to make the Aku/Samurai Jack joke.

Edited November 5, 2016 by Starman4308

[DerekL1963]

2 hours ago, Starman4308 said:

And yes, I wrote this mostly to make the Aku/Samurai Jack joke.

And that's a problem - how?

 

[Shpaget]

5 hours ago, Starman4308 said:

And yes, I wrote this mostly to make the Aku/Samurai Jack joke.

I haven't seen an episode of Samurai Jack in at least 10 years, but you mentioning "Aku" was enough to get me thinking "Hey, wasn't that the guy who screwed Jack over?"

[WinkAllKerb'']

18 hours ago, radonek said:

... Anyway, this brings back problem of information resiliency and then some. I wouldn't say this is unsolvable, ...
 

 

6 hours ago, Starman4308 said:

... The primary issue with DNA is ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere

aka timed dot and relationship with time, wich from a being to another quickly become versatile

[...]
... ][ ...

even if non organic probe get it's own telomere(s) as well

& https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_hybrid#In_plants f2, hybridation & etc.
& https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_damage_theory_of_aging
& https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erosion
& oops boot sector error ...

same process, i need a vhs, but vinyl seem to last longer than tape without health care

Edited November 5, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''
metaphors & food for thought series

[Starman4308]

5 hours ago, WinkAllKerb'' said:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere

aka timed dot and relationship with time, wich from a being to another quickly become versatile

[...]
... ][ ...

even if non organic probe get it's own telomere(s) as well

Telomeres aren't particularly relevant here; they are not there for information storage or maintenance; they exist purely to deal with a peculiarity of linear DNA chromosomes.upon replication (namely, that ordinary DNA replicases would otherwise chew a bit off the ends each replication). Since cp -r oldArchive/ newArchive does not trim any information off the ends, a inorganic, computer-based life-form/quasi-life-form would not need anything analogous to telomeres.

5 hours ago, WinkAllKerb'' said:

& https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_hybrid#In_plants f2, hybridation & etc.

I don't think we're really postulating sexual reproduction of an inorganic life-form here, just information maintenance. It'd be most analogous to a cell at G₀ phase, except unlike a G₀ cell, there'd be 100 copies of the information instead of two, and information repair would be a priority instead of "eh, dual-strand break, let's just clip some off and join the ends, I'm sure it's not in anything crucial like pyruvate decarboxylase or p53".

5 hours ago, WinkAllKerb'' said:

& https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_damage_theory_of_aging
& https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erosion

Kind of relevant, except for this case, there would be active expenditure of energy to repair damage, frequently scanning 100 backups of the same data to see if any one backup may have suffered any damage. The closest biological equivalent might be a tetraploid or octoploid cell using recombination repair with some form of additional error-checking to fix any damage.

[KSK]

10 minutes ago, Starman4308 said:

A lot of interesting stuff.

I feel smarter having read that! Really interesting stuff - thanks for teaching me something new today.

[WinkAllKerb'']

metaphorically, they are like erosion for a mountain @ smaller scales (size, time,etc.), mostly what allow the dna pearl not to fall from the collar if i got it well no ?, aren't for plant telomere what make cloning broke after a few generation from the mother plant (just read some of thoose stuffs in diagonal but that's how i understood it)? @Starman4308

Edited November 5, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''
and yup repairs and energy ^^

[Starman4308]

Telomeres are, again, a pecularity of linear chromosomes.

DNA is an anti-parallel double helix; the convention is that bases are listed 5' (the phosphate end) to 3' (the sugar end). This is the direction DNA replication takes; it adds the 5' end of a new nucleotide to the 3' end of the growing strand

So, starting with:

5'-ATAGCG-3'

   ||||||

3'-TATCGC-5'

You then split, and can start adding bases as so:

Old-5'-ATAGCG-3'

         ||||

New-3'-  TCGC-5'

Old-3'-TATCGC-5'

       |||

New-5'-ATA-3'

Now, there's an issue that arises. DNA replication typically starts mid-chain; you open up a bubble, and start replicating bidirectionally.

            ________________

5'--------/ <-Replication-> \------------3'

Now, there arises an issue. The DNA to the left (5') of the bubble can be replicated quite easily; you just lay down a base, and start elongating 5' to 3'

          3'-----<Leading Strand-5'

The other direction, though, the lagging strand, is more complicated. DNA replicases work 5' to 3', but the lagging strand looks like this:

                  3'-Lagging Strand>-----5'

The solution for the lagging strand is Okazaki fragments. It'll jump ahead maybe 1000 bases (approximately), and start replicating "backwards" (but still 5' to 3') until it reaches the leading strand. It'll then jump ahead 2000 bases, replicate 1000 bases until it reaches the prior starting point (the prior Okazaki fragment), jump ahead 2000 bases, replicate another 1000-base Okazaki fragment, etc.

5'-Parental------------------<>--------------------------------------------------------------------------3'

        3'<---Leading Strand-5'3'<------1st Fragment-5'3'<------2nd Fragment-5'     3'<---Lagging Strand-5'

Now, let us jump ahead to the end of the chromosome.

5'-Parental------------------------------------------------------------3'

3'-Lagging Strand-------------------------------------5'

You've got the last Okazaki fragment of the lagging strand, plus a short 3' overhang of the parental strand. Issue is, you can't jump ahead 1000 base pairs; you're almost at the end. If not for telomeres, then, the newly replicated chromosome would be clipped some number of bases. When it replicates, then, you'll get a new 5'-3' leading strand matching the shortened length of the old lagging strand. When that replicates, now you've got another clipped 3'-5' lagging strand. Progress that long enough, and eventually you clip away the entire chromosome.

This is where telomeres come in. I won't go into super-detail about these, other than to say they are special DNA structures, with a repeating CCCAATCCC sequence, and telomerase can add extra CCCAATCCC to the end to replace that part of the telomere that got clipped off. Aging occurs in part because telomerase becomes less active as you age, and it stops replacing all the telomere that got lost, until your cell recognizes "I'm almost out of telomere, I'll just completely stop dividing now".

The point of this all: it is a pecularity of linear DNA chromosomes. Duplicating data for an inorganic life form does not need telomeres, because telomeres are a construct to deal with a pecularity of how DNA is replicated on linear chromosomes in organic beings.

As to erosion: yes, mountains erode, but we could in theory fix them by plastering down new rock material to replace the old. We don't do that because it would be silly, but by expending some energy and potentially acquiring more raw materials, a probe could repair itself and maintain data integrity almost perpetually.

[WinkAllKerb'']

yup stars can glow almost perpetually as well ^^ thks for the explains around telemorase and ccccaatccc bidirectionality and all very interesting ^^ (out of like for today)

(and about let's say a mountain under perpetual rain it may under certain circumstance erode faster than we can fix it ^^ & all random failure aspect aside wich is more what i had in mind)

Edited November 5, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''

[radonek]

21 hours ago, Starman4308 said:

if you have 100 copies, the chance that 51/100 have had a bit flipped is almost negligible.

I am afraid this kind of simplistic redundancy is of much less help then it looks. If you have merely hundred copies of data, error can be introduced by flipping a bit or two in unit managing the redundancy. So, you need to have hundred of those too. But then you have deal with situation of redundant redundancy units not in agreement with each other.  So you add some meta-redundancy… you probably can see where this is going. You have system exceedingly resilient to errors, but made it also more then two orders of magnitude larger and much, much more complex, which opens up opportunities for exciting new failure modes. These may be so improbable as to be otherwise ignored, but in this case, we are talking about time frame that makes "negligible" sound almost same as "plausible" to me.

There are technological limits too. It may well happen that after you devise some reasonably failproof technology, it just wont fit within existing hardware constraints (it's not like nanobots have lots of computing power). You invent some method to split the load and that added complexity returns you back to square one… I am not saying it can't be done, just that it is really difficult problem to tackle. 
 

[kerbiloid]

Unlikely 4 bln years later any complex organic molecule would be something different from unrecognizable organical mess. It's chemically active, after all.

Edited November 6, 2016 by kerbiloid

[lugge]

Hi guys,
thanks for all your reply and a big sorry because I didn't manage to answer here during the weekend ;-)

OK, self-repairing will be absolutely necessary. This means, the creater of the device had to design it in such a way that it will be able to repair over time. There's no way a random probe will last such a time (an abandon space ship, for example).

Now, this self-repair system will have to be something like nano tech.
All other types of self repair (replace mainboards over time) will not work because there is no way a probe or spacecraft can manufactor all the required hardware (resistors, ICs, semiconductors...).
Nanotech is something I'm totally fine with. Problem is: even if is correct from a theoretical point, it sounds like scify.

If I read a story involving nanotech, I think "oh it's not set up in our universe but in some Scify universe".
The same is true for "time traveling" with blackholes. It's totally OK, theoretically.
But it sounds like Scify...

Will have to think about the nano tech idea...

[radonek]

4 hours ago, lugge said:

Nanotech is something I'm totally fine with. Problem is: even if is correct from a theoretical point, it sounds like scify.

IMO you can't avoid that. Reality is that with current technology any artificial artifact left alone for that kind of time will turn into shapeless lump of metal. Anything else will sound fantastic practically by definition.

4 hours ago, lugge said:

The same is true for "time traveling" with blackholes. It's totally OK, theoretically. But it sounds like Scify.

No way. We are not talking about wormholing way back to different time. We are talking probably most widely known and proven aspect of relativity. It's a century old science, with lots of existing applications. It's traveling there and back that will need a good measure of handwavium, time dilatation itself is so well explored it's almost boring.
 

[Sir_Robert]

Instead of trying to get 1 probe to survive for so long, wouldn't Von Neumann self-replicating probes be more practical?

A potential problem with black holes is "how do you retrieve such a time capsule?" You can't very well go down there and pick it up, that'd mean the mission would take a very long time thanks to the same mechanism that preserves the probe. And it's not like the aliens that find it in 4 billion years can access it's systems and tell it to move out of it's close orbit.

 

On 6-11-2016 at 1:05 AM, radonek said:

I am afraid this kind of simplistic redundancy is of much less help then it looks. If you have merely hundred copies of data, error can be introduced by flipping a bit or two in unit managing the redundancy. So, you need to have hundred of those too. But then you have deal with situation of redundant redundancy units not in agreement with each other.  So you add some meta-redundancy… you probably can see where this is going. You have system exceedingly resilient to errors, but made it also more then two orders of magnitude larger and much, much more complex, which opens up opportunities for exciting new failure modes. These may be so improbable as to be otherwise ignored, but in this case, we are talking about time frame that makes "negligible" sound almost same as "plausible" to me.

There are technological limits too. It may well happen that after you devise some reasonably failproof technology, it just wont fit within existing hardware constraints (it's not like nanobots have lots of computing power). You invent some method to split the load and that added complexity returns you back to square one… I am not saying it can't be done, just that it is really difficult problem to tackle. 
 

Incidentally, this is how cancer starts. Mutations in the genes that check for mutations.

Edited November 7, 2016 by Sir_Robert

[radonek]

8 minutes ago, Sir_Robert said:

A potential problem with black holes is "how do you retrieve such a time capsule?"

Simple. Craft is sent on return mission, but somehow ventures deeper then planned. Some massive object can push it out. Can be on highly eccentric orbit that will pull it out once in a while. Or it is simply retrieved by "sufficiently advanced technology", its not like there is not enough time for advancement.

[Kerbart]

Suppose it hit the surface of some asteroid or comet that was covered with nitrogen "snow," guaranteeing a soft impact. Whenever the asteroid got closer to the sun, outgassing would create a thin nitrogen atmosphere and then it would liquify/solidify as the asteroid would be further away from the sun; it would come down as snow, covering the spacecraft over the course of thousands of years. Since it's now covered it's fairly well protected against cosmic radiation.

Then some event happens changing the orbit of our asteroid, placing it closer to the sun. All the snow melts away, and out comes our spacecraft, in fairly good condition, to be discovered. Or mayne it's unearthed by our future ancestors when they are mining the asteroid?

I'm sure that from a scientific perspective there's holes the size of Swiss cheese in it, but for the average layman it'll come over as plausible, without using techno-magic.

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, radonek said:

Craft is sent on return mission, but somehow ventures deeper then planned. Some massive object can push it out. Can be on highly eccentric orbit that will pull it out once in a while.

Send the probe with a thermonuke into Oort cloud.
Shoot down a comet redirecting it towards the Earth and land the transmitter onto its surface.
When your probe will be approaching the Earth location, all possible antennas and telescopes will be watching this comet. So, a very weak transmitter will still be absolutely enough to be heard.

And in the silent darkness of space there will sound such simple but beneficient words:
"Greetings, our far descendants. We come in peace!"

Edited November 7, 2016 by kerbiloid

[Sir_Robert]

On 7-11-2016 at 8:43 PM, Kerbart said:

Suppose it hit the surface of some asteroid or comet that was covered with nitrogen "snow," guaranteeing a soft impact. Whenever the asteroid got closer to the sun, outgassing would create a thin nitrogen atmosphere and then it would liquify/solidify as the asteroid would be further away from the sun; it would come down as snow, covering the spacecraft over the course of thousands of years. Since it's now covered it's fairly well protected against cosmic radiation.

Then some event happens changing the orbit of our asteroid, placing it closer to the sun. All the snow melts away, and out comes our spacecraft, in fairly good condition, to be discovered. Or mayne it's unearthed by our future ancestors when they are mining the asteroid?

I'm sure that from a scientific perspective there's holes the size of Swiss cheese in it, but for the average layman it'll come over as plausible, without using techno-magic.

A problem is that this would rely on chance to reveal the time capsule. Wouldn't it be better to have a beacon saying 'time capsule here'?

[mikegarrison]

Getting probes into the future is actually really easy. We are all moving into the future, one second per second (ignoring relativistic issues).

And a probe in interstellar space will probably pretty much be exactly the same millions of years from now as it is now. Anything that can outgass will be gone, but other than that it should be fine unless it gets hit by to many particles.

Edited November 11, 2016 by mikegarrison

[p1t1o]

Fun Fact - If you could build a ship with a drive that can accelerate your ship at 1G indefinitely (A fantasy of course, but this is a thought experiment) you could pilot the ship and circumnavigate the entire observable universe in about 100 years of ship-time, due to extreme time dilation. Many billions of years would pass for people not on board the ship, however.