Astronomers Seem to Think We Can Detect Alien Civilizations by the Glow of City Lights

City Lights Could Reveal E.T. Civilization

ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2011) — In the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, astronomers have hunted for radio signals and ultra-short laser pulses. In a new paper, Avi Loeb (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and Edwin Turner (Princeton University) suggest a new technique for finding aliens: look for their city lights. "Looking for alien cities would be a long shot, but wouldn't require extra resources. And if we succeed, it would change our perception of our place in the universe," said Loeb.

NASA Image of Earth emitting light from cities:


Now that we know how to spot planets, and we have newer and more sophisticated imaging equipment going up into space, the question is, can the activity of civilizations be spotted? Namely, city light?

Personally, the kind of optics and filtration you would need to spot the lights of cities on alien worlds is highly sophisticated, though NOT impossible. I don't believe it is as much of a long shot as being portrayed here. I think it is very possible, though it would be horrendously expensive.

reply to post by projectvxn


I think this is a good idea, but it needs to be one of many. Light can be given off from a variety of different natural sources for a start, so other checks ought to be in place.The other thing is, there is no reason to suspect that an alien species sees the same range of visible light as we do, so if our observations are refined down to our own specifications, we could be hamstringing ourselves.

What we should be doing , is concentrating all efforts of science toward getting man moving faster through the cosmos, and think about where to go AFTER. This would force any machine we build to make this happen, to be adaptable, rather than narrow in its remit.

reply to post by TrueBrit

What we should be doing , is concentrating all efforts of science toward getting man moving faster through the cosmos, and think about where to go AFTER.

Actually I disagree. We should know what is out there and what we're headed for ahead of time. Space exploration is a dangerous game.

Thread already exists on this story
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Search and ..... well you know

reply to post by gortex


Actually I did do a search.

Unfortunately I netted no articles here.

I will alert a mod.