Not sure why aliens would evolve to see like that. Their vision would be extremely blurry, the smallest detail they could resolve would be about the same size as the wavelenght (meters to kilometers).
this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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You might think that but really our radio waves are like a spark compared to the forest fire that is the sun. We only think of radio waves as extreme or flooding because they usually have better penetration because of the lower frequencies.
This also why basically everything alive that has sight is looking at roughly the same spectrum as humans, it is just very abundant, has a high frequency (eyes can be small) and is just below ionizing radiation so easier to stay healthy. And the low penetration is useful, imagine a transparent tiger.
What about Infrared? Wouldn't that be immensely useful? I've always wondered why no species has ever evolved infrared vision.
Thermal imaging requires specialised organs. The difference between optical and thermal wavelengths is too extreme for a single organ to cover. Long wavelength IR is also quite low resolution for visual purposes.
Snakes have evolved the capability, but it's not common.
We see in the visible part, yet we are not blinded by all the light.
Revved up like a deuce, in the middle of the night
"Ripped up like a douche" - my friends in high school
Im confused by the statement. If im reading this image correctly radio is well out side human range. Unless you meant you are not human in which case nvn.
If you were an alien sensing radio waves a city for you would be the same as a bright day for us: we are used to lots of visible light being scattered around, and the aliens would be used to radio doing the same.
The point is we have adaptations that allow us to handle the amount of light we live in. As humans, it's not sensitive enough for moonless night activities and not adaptive enough to handle staring at the sun, but appropriate for most earthly activities. Meanwhile, nocturnal eyes in other animals are easily overwhelmed in daytime and diurnal eyes can be even less useful at night. So for this alien, we can't decide if it'll be blinded or perfectly competent at handling our local illumination. All depends on if it evolved to hide between stars or eat inner planets
They'd have really big eyes. Depending on the wavelength they can see, they might be nearly all eye.
If they were able to see a significant chunk of it at good acuity they'd have to be so big I doubt they could survive in a gravity well thanks to the square cube law of surface area. Be more like living space stations. If they were distributed organisms like a mycelium or Aspen colony, maybe they could survive actually visiting Earth, but they'd be really big. Processing that much data over large areas would mean they are very sophisticated thinkers but with a very high latency so slow.
One fun implication of these building sized to tens of kilometer sized eyes is that am sources would look like a one color light source getting brighter and darker while an fm source would slightly shift colors. Going to earth would be like going clubbing with strobes and disco lights thrown everywhere.
I don't see why they'd have to have big eyes. We use massive radio telescopes for sensitivity, not for the spectrum range. AM radio is in the order of 100 meter wavelengths, but handheld devices can receive it. Wavelength isn't really the defining factor as much as being able to handle the frequency of the data over the time required. Wavelength is not how tall the wave is, amplitude is.
Handheld devices can receive it, but to actually "see" with it you need a very large aperture(iris) and a "retina" with many of those antennas that respond to different wavelengths. The overall structure of an eye capable of seeing would be massive, not because the signal is faint or you can't "fit" the amplitude in the aperture but because that's what you need for acuity and to actually have meaningful angular resolution. Those long waves have more limited angles to fit in a given eye diameter. For something like AM, we're talking a very big structure.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_resolution
θ ≈ λ/D where θ is the angular resolution, λ is the wavelength, and D is the diameter of the aperture
As you can see, increasing the wavelength by orders of magnitude means you need to increase the aperture by orders of magnitude to get the same angular resolution.
[off topic?]
There's a science fiction series called The Lensmen by 'Doc' E.E. Smith. Big influence on Star Wars and other space operas. In one book a human is preparing to visit one of the most dangerous civilizations in the Galaxy. Super-special, quadruple strength armored suit he hopes will be strong enough to protect him.
The planet has a tech level equal to mid-20th Century Earth, but the natives are completely deaf. So none of the cars, trains, planes or other machinery has any noise dampening.
He survives, but it's close...
https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-lensman-super-pack-e-e-doc-smith/20084689?ean=9781515460855&next=t
That's interesting but you'd have dampening because all the vibration can also be felt physically and damages stuff.
Classic stuff. I remember that story. The whole Lensmen series was so influential for me early on. Thanks for bringing it up.
Doesn't all our wireless communication basically amount to nothing compared to the sun?
Life on earth that only sees in the radio part of the light spectrum is probably extinct now without us ever knowing it existed.
Almost definitely.
TV stations are broadcast sometimes at 100KW. Compare that to a 40 watt LED bulb.
If they came to Earth, yes.