>>10980853>First signs of our existence have only travelled just over a hundred light years.Now, there's a funny thing about that. It's called the inverse square law. It states that the magnitude (or usable signal) drops dramatically, proportionally to the square of one's distance from the source. Which is to say: as a signal goes further into space, it becomes significantly less distinguishable from background noise.
For reception of any signal sent to or by an alien species, it would require: the signal to be directed at the correct position, a signal strong and narrow enough to maintain coherency over the vast distances, minimal obstructions (such as planets, stars, radio noise from stars, black holes, etc.), the listeners to be tuned to the correct frequency at the correct time, and for the listeners to understand the signal as coming from an intelligent species.
Even then the signal would be at least hundreds of years old. The species (such as us, potentially) could be extinct by the time anyone picks it up.
