NASA: Dust Models Paint Alien's View of Solar System

This may not be what is usually posted in this forum, and one may argue that it should be posted in the Space Exploration forums, but it's an interesting article and video that might spark some interesting discussions in the context of this forum category. However, I'll leave that for you to decide, I thought it was interesting all by itself.

New supercomputer simulations tracking the interactions of thousands of dust grains show what the solar system might look like to alien astronomers searching for planets. The models also provide a glimpse of how this view might have changed as our planetary system matured.

"The planets may be too dim to detect directly, but aliens studying the solar system could easily determine the presence of Neptune -- its gravity carves a little gap in the dust," said Marc Kuchner, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. who led the study. "We're hoping our models will help us spot Neptune-sized worlds around other stars."

Source: Dust Models Paint Alien's View of Solar System