638: The Search - Revision history

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

2026-01-31T02:19:43Z

‎Transcript

Lettherebedarklight: /* Transcript */ add Category:Comics with a Spanish translation

2025-12-15T08:58:12Z

‎Transcript: add Category:Comics with a Spanish translation

82.132.245.74: /* Explanation */ whoops

2025-11-04T20:49:09Z

‎Explanation: whoops

82.132.245.201: /* Explanation */ Neater cased (and pluraled) link-use. Removed one of two too-closely-adjacent Citation Neededs (leaving the 'best' of the two, though I'm not totally convinced).

2025-11-04T20:18:41Z

‎Explanation: Neater cased (and pluraled) link-use. Removed one of two too-closely-adjacent Citation Neededs (leaving the 'best' of the two, though I'm not totally convinced).

162.218.182.23: /* Explanation */ Capitalization

2025-11-04T17:04:20Z

‎Explanation: Capitalization

OblateSpheroid: Updated to reflect the fact that the mission is no longer ongoing, having ended 7 years ago

2025-11-01T02:59:04Z

Updated to reflect the fact that the mission is no longer ongoing, having ended 7 years ago

Natg19: /* Transcript */ ants

2022-10-11T02:10:53Z

‎Transcript: ants

Vandalbane: Reverted vandalism with User:CRLF/OneClickUndo.js

2022-05-26T19:45:35Z

Reverted vandalism with User:CRLF/OneClickUndo.js

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Donald Trump: Reverted edit by anti-crap user

2022-05-26T19:06:52Z

Reverted edit by anti-crap user

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Vandalbane: Reverted vandalism with User:CRLF/OneClickUndo.js

2022-05-26T17:59:55Z

Reverted vandalism with User:CRLF/OneClickUndo.js

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@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 ==Transcript==
-:[Two ants are facing each other with their antennas almost touching. They are on a tiled floor with the two nearest rows of tiles fully shown, and those further back covered partly be the speech text of the ant to the right.]
+:[Two ants are facing each other with their antennas almost touching. They are on a tiled floor with the two nearest rows of tiles fully shown, and those further back covered partly by the speech text of the ant to the right.]
 :Ant: We've searched dozens of these floor tiles for several common types of pheromone trails.
 :Ant: If there were intelligent life up there, we would have seen its messages by now.

← Older revision		Revision as of 08:58, 15 December 2025
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	[[Category:SETI]]		[[Category:SETI]]
	[[Category:Exoplanets]]		[[Category:Exoplanets]]
		+	[[Category:Comics with a Spanish translation]]

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 Similarly, our ability to search outer space for other life is limited to our ability to detect specific modes of communication (i.e. radio waves) and to the very limited area of space imposed by technological limitations on transportation, range, and sensitivity of our equipment.
-The title text refers to the {{w|Kepler mission}} to discover {{w|extrasolar planets}}s. In August 2009, a couple of weeks before this comic, the first results of this mission were released, which showed the spacecraft to be healthy and had detected a known exoplanet. No new science results would be released until November of 2009, which Randall was anticipating. This mission has found more than 2,700 planet candidates that still have to be confirmed by other telescopes. So that's the difference to the ants. By May of 2013, two "reaction wheels" (heavy metallic discs that can be spun to impart angular momentum to the probe, mounted on the major axis; an alternative to reaction thrusters, which require a depletable supply of reaction fuel) on Kepler had failed, causing NASA to change the mission, though it continued searching for planets with its two remaining wheels. In October of 2018, NASA had announced that the craft had run out of fuel. The craft was deactivated shortly after, on November 15, 2018.
+The title text refers to the {{w|Kepler mission}} to discover {{w|extrasolar planet}}s. In August 2009, a couple of weeks before this comic, the first results of this mission were released, which showed the spacecraft to be healthy and had detected a known exoplanet. No new science results would be released until November of 2009, which Randall was anticipating. This mission has found more than 2,700 planet candidates that still have to be confirmed by other telescopes. So that's the difference to the ants. By May of 2013, two "reaction wheels" (heavy metallic discs that can be spun to impart angular momentum to the probe, mounted on the major axis; an alternative to reaction thrusters, which require a depletable supply of reaction fuel) on Kepler had failed, causing NASA to change the mission, though it continued searching for planets with its two remaining wheels. In October of 2018, NASA had announced that the craft had run out of fuel. The craft was deactivated shortly after, on November 15, 2018.
 The second part is a bait-and-switch joke; by calling the search for extrasolar planets "the second most important thing our species has ever done", it creates the expectation that the "first most important thing" will be a monumental breakthrough, such as for example the concept of language. Instead, the title text ends up just revealing that [[Randall]] likes having pizza delivered.

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 ==Explanation==
-This comic is a commentary on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The ants' dialogue describes the narrow scope of their search (a few tiles, and only looking for pheromone trails), and thus they conclude that there is no other intelligent life. The irony is that humanity does of course exist,{{Citation needed}} but were simply not present in the kitchen at the time of search, nor do we communicate with ant pheromones.{{Citation needed}}
+This comic is a commentary on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The ants' dialogue describes the narrow scope of their search (a few tiles, and only looking for pheromone trails), and thus they conclude that there is no other intelligent life. The irony is that humanity does of course exist,{{Citation needed}} but were simply not present in the kitchen at the time of search, nor do we communicate with ant pheromones.
 Similarly, our ability to search outer space for other life is limited to our ability to detect specific modes of communication (i.e. radio waves) and to the very limited area of space imposed by technological limitations on transportation, range, and sensitivity of our equipment.
-The title text refers to the {{w|Kepler mission}} to discover {{w|Extrasolar planets|extrasolar planets}}. In August 2009, a couple of weeks before this comic, the first results of this mission were released, which showed the spacecraft to be healthy and had detected a known exoplanet. No new science results would be released until November of 2009, which Randall was anticipating. This mission has found more than 2,700 planet candidates that still have to be confirmed by other telescopes. So that's the difference to the ants. By May of 2013, two "reaction wheels" (heavy metallic discs that can be spun to impart angular momentum to the probe, mounted on the major axis; an alternative to reaction thrusters, which require a depletable supply of reaction fuel) on Kepler had failed, causing NASA to change the mission, though it continued searching for planets with its two remaining wheels. In October of 2018, NASA had announced that the craft had run out of fuel. The craft was deactivated shortly after, on November 15, 2018.
+The title text refers to the {{w|Kepler mission}} to discover {{w|extrasolar planets}}s. In August 2009, a couple of weeks before this comic, the first results of this mission were released, which showed the spacecraft to be healthy and had detected a known exoplanet. No new science results would be released until November of 2009, which Randall was anticipating. This mission has found more than 2,700 planet candidates that still have to be confirmed by other telescopes. So that's the difference to the ants. By May of 2013, two "reaction wheels" (heavy metallic discs that can be spun to impart angular momentum to the probe, mounted on the major axis; an alternative to reaction thrusters, which require a depletable supply of reaction fuel) on Kepler had failed, causing NASA to change the mission, though it continued searching for planets with its two remaining wheels. In October of 2018, NASA had announced that the craft had run out of fuel. The craft was deactivated shortly after, on November 15, 2018.
 The second part is a bait-and-switch joke; by calling the search for extrasolar planets "the second most important thing our species has ever done", it creates the expectation that the "first most important thing" will be a monumental breakthrough, such as for example the concept of language. Instead, the title text ends up just revealing that [[Randall]] likes having pizza delivered.

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 Similarly, our ability to search outer space for other life is limited to our ability to detect specific modes of communication (i.e. radio waves) and to the very limited area of space imposed by technological limitations on transportation, range, and sensitivity of our equipment.
-The title text refers to the {{w|Kepler mission}} to discover {{w|Extrasolar planets}}. In August 2009, a couple of weeks before this comic, the first results of this mission were released, which showed the spacecraft to be healthy and had detected a known exoplanet. No new science results would be released until November of 2009, which Randall was anticipating. This mission has found more than 2,700 planet candidates that still have to be confirmed by other telescopes. So that's the difference to the ants. By May of 2013, two "reaction wheels" (heavy metallic discs that can be spun to impart angular momentum to the probe, mounted on the major axis; an alternative to reaction thrusters, which require a depletable supply of reaction fuel) on Kepler had failed, causing NASA to change the mission, though it continued searching for planets with its two remaining wheels. In October of 2018, NASA had announced that the craft had run out of fuel. The craft was deactivated shortly after, on November 15, 2018.
+The title text refers to the {{w|Kepler mission}} to discover {{w|Extrasolar planets|extrasolar planets}}. In August 2009, a couple of weeks before this comic, the first results of this mission were released, which showed the spacecraft to be healthy and had detected a known exoplanet. No new science results would be released until November of 2009, which Randall was anticipating. This mission has found more than 2,700 planet candidates that still have to be confirmed by other telescopes. So that's the difference to the ants. By May of 2013, two "reaction wheels" (heavy metallic discs that can be spun to impart angular momentum to the probe, mounted on the major axis; an alternative to reaction thrusters, which require a depletable supply of reaction fuel) on Kepler had failed, causing NASA to change the mission, though it continued searching for planets with its two remaining wheels. In October of 2018, NASA had announced that the craft had run out of fuel. The craft was deactivated shortly after, on November 15, 2018.
 The second part is a bait-and-switch joke; by calling the search for extrasolar planets "the second most important thing our species has ever done", it creates the expectation that the "first most important thing" will be a monumental breakthrough, such as for example the concept of language. Instead, the title text ends up just revealing that [[Randall]] likes having pizza delivered.

@@ Line 25: / Line 25: @@
 {{comic discussion}}
-[[Category:Animals]]
+[[Category:Ants]]
 [[Category:Aliens]]
 [[Category:SETI]]
 [[Category:Exoplanets]]