Space Telescopes Could Find Structures Created by Aliens |
|
Written by spacetravel.org
|
|
Tuesday, 12 April 2005 22:46 |
|
Space-based telescopes could be used to discover structures created by alien civilizations. According to Luc Arnold of the Observatory of Haute-Provence in France, space-based telescopes that are now being designed will be able to spot structures created by advanced civilizations, which "may be the best way for an advanced extraterrestrial civilization to signal its presence to an emerging technology like ours." Arnold says that space-based solar telescopes, such as NASA's Kepler and the European Space Agency's forthcoming Corot telescope could identify an artificial object the size of a planet, such as a lightweight solar sail. The new telescopes would be able to distinguish these objects from most planets, though a ringed planet like Saturn might confuse them.
Arnold says that an alien civilization could signal its presence by launching a number of structures into orbit around a star. They might encode prime numbers in the number of objects in groups orbiting the star, or in the time interval between different groups orbiting the same star. Arnold thinks that this kind of signalling would be at least as effective as broadcasting a message using a high-powered laser pulse or radio signal. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is currently looking for such signals.
|