Tag: Technosignatures
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How ‘Big Data’ could help SETI researchers intensify the search for alien civilizations
Artwork shows the Gaia spacecraft against the background of the Milky Way. (ESA Illustration / D. Ducros) Could far-off aliens be sending out signals telling us they exist? If so, how would we know where to look? Researchers focusing on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, have laid out a new strategy for focusing…
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Scientists look for new ways to track the technosignatures of alien civilizations
An artist’s conception shows a crumbling megastructure known as a Dyson sphere orbiting a distant star. Could such structures produce detectable technosignatures? (Danielle Futselaar Illustration) Could extraterrestrial civilizations leave their fingerprints as chlorofluorocarbons in planetary atmospheres, or the waste heat generated by industrial processes, or artificial bursts of neutrinos or gravitational waves? That’s what a…
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‘Oumuamua, oh my! Was interstellar object actually an alien solar sail? Not so fast
An artist’s conception shows what the interstellar asteroid Oumuamua might look like. Or does it actually look more an alien light sail? (ESO Illustration / M. Kornmesser) ‘Oumuamua is long gone from the inner solar system, but the mystery surrounding the interstellar interloper has been rekindled, thanks to a research paper written by two Harvard…
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Are we alone? NASA turns to the search for technosignatures beyond Earth
An artist’s representation shows a megastructure known as a Dyson sphere capturing the energy from a distant star. Such a structure could create observable technosignatures pointing to the civilization behind its construction. (Credit: Danielle Futselaar / SETI International) It’s been a quarter-century since Congress cut off NASA funding for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or…