Might Humanity First Discover Extraterrestrial Life Through Alien Technology Signatures?

If an alien looked towards the earth these few gadgets such as the cell towers and fluorescent bulbs could act as a signal that there are living beings on the planet. We are two astronomers, our main focus being on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence which is also known as SETI.

On our quest, we try to define and search for signs of technology coming from or beyond the Earth. Although, searching for a TV signal signal of extraterrestrial Olympics might sound quite easy, the idea of seeking signals of remote and advanced extra terrestrial civilizations is much more complicated and technical than it’ll seem.

Saying ‘hello’ with radios and lasers

The critical scientific quest for other cosmic civilizations was initiated with a technical prediction by two astronomers, Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison in 1959. The same year, Frank Drake, initiated the first SETI search, Project Ozma, which directed a big radio telescope at two Sun-neighbouring stars to analyze whether there was an evident radio transmission coming from the stars. Subsequent to Laser’s invention in 1960, astronomers discovered that visible light can also be collected from distant planets.

All those earlier attempts to ‘hunt’ for radio or laser signals from another civilization were all looking for focussed, powerful signals which had been beamed and directed toward the solar system and presumably were meant to be received.

Astronomers in the 1960s did not take the idea of broadcast signals – like TV and radio signals on the earth – being picked up by other instruments with seriousness because due to technological limitations of that time, it was deemed impossible. However, a specific radio signal that has its entire power directed towards the Earth could easily be identified from a significantly far away – in comparison to a laser, it would be as if the equivalent was a weak light bulb.

The usual methods of intentionally transmitting radio and laser signals are still considered as one of the most widely used by SETI in present days. However, this strategy presupposes that alien civilizations want to communicate with other technologically developed beings. People extremely seldom intentionally transmit pulsations in the space, and some researchers assert that highly developed creatures intentionally do not emit a call. Attempts to pursue signs that no one will ever transmit and, in fact, do not exist is coined the SETI Paradox.

Leaking radio waves

Although purposely humans actively broadcast signals into space, many of the modern technologies are constantly emitting a significant number of radio waves.

Some of these signals would certainly be observable if they are emitted from a star, another celestial bodies. Every broadcasting station has its television towers placed around the world disseminating signals in various directions while some of it leaks into space and may gather into a recognizable albeit very weak radio signal. There is ongoing study to find out if emission from cell towers in the radio frequency range on earth can be detected today using the telescope but as you know the SKA radio telescope which is coming will be fifty times more sensitive than some of the radio telescope arrays today.

However, not all human-made signals are as unfocused as those that emerged randomly in a ‘spontaneous’ society. Astronomers and the space agencies make use of beams of radio waves for sending signals to other satellites as well as space crafts in the solar system.

The meteorites may also be studied with the use of radio waves as an identification layer as used by some researchers. In both of these circumstances the radio emissions are more directed and pointed out in to the space . Since the direction of these beams is known as ‘earth,’ any extraterrestrial civilization in the line of sight likely would detect these blatantly artificial signals.

Finding megastructures

Assuming an actual out of Earth technosignature that has been depicted in science fiction films or novels, radio waves are the most common overall depicted technosignature.

However, these are not the only possible signals so 1, I need to know,…It was read by astrophysicist Freeman Dyson in 1960 claiming that since stars are generally the biggest source of energy in any planetary system, a technologically advanced civilization that society can harness a significant portion of the star’s light amounted to energy using what would essentially by a solar sail.

These astronomers often call them mega-structures, and there are a number of ways to look for them. This means that after the energy in the collected light was used to meet some of their needs, an advanced society’s technology would then send out some portion back into space as heat.

Hot means for astronomers have proved that this heat can be observed in the form of more infrared emission within a star system. Another approach that can be used to define a megastructure is that such an object is capable of causing dimming of a star.

Scientists gave the explanation that if large manmade satellites were in orbit, they would occasionally cause some of the light from a star to be blocked. This would be seen in variations in the brightness of the star as observed from the earth in corresponding intervals.

This influence could be detected in a similar manner as planets are detected today.
Thus, astronomers could detect this influence and its impact on the magnetic field in a similar manner that far off planets are discovered today.

A whole lot of pollution

Another type of technosignature which astronomers have considered is Pollution Hence, there are several types of technosignatures that astronomers have considered or we can say different aspects of technosignatures. Airborne contaminants – well-known chemical substances such as nitrogen dioxide and chlorofluorocarbons in the terrestrial environment are mainly emitted by human activities.

These compounds can be looked for in exoplanet climates by the same method as the James Webb Space Telescope, which seeks for signs of life on distant planets. Speculatively, if astronomers identify a world which has an environment thick with compounds that can only be synthesized by technology, it could be evidence of life. Last, extra-large optical and infra-red might see artificial lights or infra-red given off from cities and industries and also numerous satellites around a planet.

But in order to be seen beyond such an immense emptiness which the universe is with the technologies which are available to human beings at present, a civilization would have to emit a lot more heat, light, signals and space crafts than what our planet does.

Which signal is best?

No astronomer has ever found an actual technosignature, which means that it is hard to build an expectation about what will serves as the first clue of the existence of aliens. Whereas lots of astronomers have pondered over what must make a good signal, no one knows what alien technology would appear to be, or what signals exist in the universe.

Because most of the points made by the critics are valid, some astronomers prefer another SETI concept that searches for any signal in space that cannot be accounted for by the current modern scientific knowledge. Some search for only the technological appendixes, while some, including ourselves, search for directed as well as random technosignatures. Thus, the last line is that there are several ways of searching for life on other worlds. So, still no one will be able to predict which of these techniques will bring success faster, and there is a great deal of interesting work in this direction.

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