Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Maybe someone out there has solved the problem of renewable energy intermittency.
With intelligent life in scant supply on Earth, boffins search for technosignatures of civilizations in the galaxy
Pollution, sprawling cities of megastructures, any sign aliens are screwing up just like us…
MON 22 JUN 2020 // 07:52 UTC
Astronomers are on the hunt for signs of alien civilizations in space by searching for things like extraterrestrial solar panels or planetary atmospheres spewing pollutants.
The team, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the University of Rochester in the US, believe these so-called “technosignatures” are evidence of intelligence in other places than Earth. If advanced life forms exist they’ll be using electronics, the thinking goes, and that means emissions that could be detected.
“Technosignatures relate to signatures of advanced alien technologies similar to, or perhaps more sophisticated than what we possess,” Avi Loeb, chairman of Harvard University’s Department of Astronomy, saidthis month. “Such signatures might include industrial pollution of atmospheres, city lights, photovoltaic cells, megastructures, or swarms of satellites.”
Loeb told us his team will be awarded a total of $286,926 by NASA over two years to scour space for technosignatures. They will kickstart their search by trying to find signs that civilizations are trying to harvest star light for energy with the use of solar panels.
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The researchers pointed to the example of Proxima b, the closest Earth-like planet that may be habitable located some 4.25 light years away. Proxima b is believed to be rocky and is tidally locked to its parent star Proxima. That means that the same side of the planet faces the small yellow star as it orbits, and the other side is permanently shrouded in darkness.
“If a civilization wants to illuminate or warm up the night side, they would place photovoltaic cells on the day side and transfer the electric power gained to the night side,” said Adam Frank, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester working on the study.
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Read more: https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/22/if_you_want_to_find/
The NASA funded team are also looking for pollution signatures. Perhaps all that pollution was emitted when the aliens strip mined their entire planet in an effort to power their civilisation with solar energy.
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And there’s the problem that human life has been present on Earth For about 0.1% of Earth’s 4.5 billion years, civilized human life for about 1% of that, and electricity-utilizing human life for less than 5% of that. And we have no way to predict how long our present use of electricity will persist. Perhaps generally detectable electricity use will be replaces be something else. Solar energy likewise
So what is the chance that any planet we observe will be in a period of observable electricity using civilization? Seems like a probably unproductive line of research, though very noble and wonderfully signaling of virtue, no doubt….
But only if there were sufficient government subsidies!
From the article: “With intelligent life in scant supply on Earth, boffins search for technosignatures of civilizations in the galaxy”
I busted out laughing again!
Intelligent life does seem to be scant on Earth at the present time. Maybe it’s just temporary insanity.
There must be too much money floating around.
$287K hardly pays the loaded year salary of one full NASA employee. This is intern level or part time funding. It’s a joke on the scale of things. I think this is window dressing (cross dressing?) for a few astronomy and say environmental grad students. You can bet who is going to do the larger share of the work.
And the good folks at NASA wonder why nobody takes them seriously anymore.
They should probably study planets with G-type stars if they are looking for civilizations.
It’s doubtful a civilization will develop on a planet around a red dwarf star, like Proxima Centauri, considering where the habitable zone has to be.
Wait.
Are they seeking a civilization powered by solar panels?
Or are they seeking evidence of other civilizations using solar panels?
Funny thing those solar panels might actually be effective when placed in space,with constant access to sunlight.
Was this not the thesis of O’Neall? and the idea of moving all production processes to the Larange Points?
If NASA is hoping to spot a solar dependent civilization,they need only look to Earth.
Coal is Solar Energy.
John “Are they seeking a civilization powered by solar panels?”
I think they were referring to ‘Intelligent Life’ so using that description and solar panels in the same sentence would be an oxymoron, wouldn’t it? 🙂
Consider that the $286,926 so cavalierly pissed away by NASA could have paid for more than 1,000 third world children to get their cleft lips and palates surgically repaired by Operation Smile. With a benefactor providing a ‘doubling’ match, as often happens, the number becomes 2,000 surgeries that allow children to eat normally, smile, and not be ostracized. This is the real world cost of opportunity lost.
Thank you for this. Outstanding. Applies equally to the trillions slated for “climate change mitigation.”
Amazing isn’t it, how our “thought leaders” keep saying it’s all about making life better in the developing world? That might be the biggest lie of all.
“Proxima b is believed to be rocky and is TIDALY LOCKED to its parent star”
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Which precludes the possibility that life could exist there in the first place. What a moronic waste of money!
This is no surprise. NASA could not even build a launch system to put astronauts into low orbit. So I guess they had to find another task they could spend our money on that had a better chance of “success”. They are truly a bunch of Bozos. Apologies to Bozo the clown, he was successful at his job.
Don’t you think they should be targeting a planet that spins ????