Technosignature Archives

Conceptual image of an exoplanet with an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. Structures on the right are orbiting solar panel arrays that harvest light from the parent star and convert it into electricity that is then beamed to the surface via microwaves. The exoplanet on the left illustrates other potential technosignatures: city lights (glowing circular structures) on the night side and multi-colored clouds on the day side that represent various forms of pollution, such as nitrogen dioxide gas from burning fossil fuels or chlorofluorocarbons used in refrigeration. NASA/Jay Freidlander

Astronomy & Telescopes, Intelligence & Language, Interstellar, Press Release, SETI & Technosignatures

Why We Might Not Spot Solar Panel Technosignatures On Other Worlds

by Keith CowingAugust 3, 2024August 3, 2024

One of NASA’s key priorities is understanding the potential for life elsewhere in the universe. NASA has not found any credible evidence of extraterrestrial life — but NASA is exploring […]

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release, SETI & Technosignatures, Terraforming & Geoengineering, TRAPPIST-1

Telltale Greenhouse Gases Could Signal Alien Terraforming Activity

by Keith CowingJune 26, 2024June 26, 2024

If aliens modified a planet in their solar system to make it warmer, we’d be able to tell. A new UC Riverside study identifies the artificial greenhouse gases that would […]

Astrobiology (general), Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Career Opportunities, Press Release, SETI & Technosignatures

SETI Institute Launches Groundbreaking Technosignature Science and Technology

by Keith CowingJune 12, 2024June 12, 2024

The SETI Institute is announcing the launch of a pioneering grants program dedicated to advancing technosignature science. This first-of-its-kind initiative aims to support innovative research addressing critical observational, theoretical, and […]

The offset positions of the radio sources associated with DS candidates A, B and G. Each field is 15 x 15 arcseconds in extent. The Gaia coordinates of the DS candidates define the centre of each field. -- astro-ph.SR

Astronomy & Telescopes, SETI & Technosignatures, Status Report

Background Contamination of the Project Hephaistos Dyson Spheres Candidates

by Keith CowingMay 27, 2024

Project Hephaistos recently identified seven M-dwarfs as possible Dyson Spheres (DS) candidates. We have cross-matched three of these candidates (A, B \& G) with radio sources detected in various all-sky […]

A global composite assembled from data acquired in 2016 by the NOAA-NASA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite. This nighttime view of far northern Europe was made possible by the “day-night band” of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite. VIIRS was built to be sensitive enough to measure nighttime light emissions and reflections, to distinguish the intensity of lights, and to observe how they change.-- NASA

Astronomy & Telescopes, Intelligence & Language, SETI & Technosignatures, Status Report

Is There A Universal Limit To Technological Development? Evidences From Astrobiology

by Keith CowingMay 27, 2024May 27, 2024

Considering the vastness of time and space, if one civilization — ours — has been able to advance technologically to the point of leaving its own planet, why technosignatures from […]

Concept figure illustrating a hypothetical Earth-like inhabited planet terraformed with various combined abundances of artificial greenhouse gases C3F8, C2F6, and SF6 and its resulting qualitative mid-infrared transmission (top) and emission (bottom) spectra. The figure conveys the anomalously high absorption opacity that may be detected when characterizing an exoplanet whose climate is modified by these artificial gases, which span the key mid-infrared window wavelengths. (Graphic artist: Sohail Wasif, UC Riverside). -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, SETI & Technosignatures, Status Report

Artificial Greenhouse Gases as Exoplanet Technosignatures

by Keith CowingMay 21, 2024June 26, 2024

Atmospheric pollutants such as CFCs and NO2 have been proposed as potential remotely detectable atmospheric technosignature gases. Here we investigate the potential for artificial greenhouse gases including CF4, C2F6, C3F8, […]

Reflectance of different surface components on a planet as a function of wavelength. The reflectance of silicon-based photovoltaics is shown as dashed curve. The ground model is based on the data from MODIS dataset https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/about/. The solar cell reflectivity data is from RELAB (Reflectance Experiments Laboratory (Pieters & Hiroi 2004) -- astro-ph.IM

Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Imaging & Spectroscopy, SETI & Technosignatures, Status Report

Detectability of Solar Panels as a Technosignature

by Keith CowingMay 9, 2024May 9, 2024

In this work, we assess the potential detectability of solar panels made of silicon on an Earth-like exoplanet as a potential technosignature. Silicon-based photovoltaic cells have high reflectance in the […]

PDF of technoemission longevity L (top row) and starting time t of emissions (bottom row) calculated under the assumption that the unconditional PDF of t is uniform over the interval [1, 1010] yr. Panels (a)-(c) show the conditional, Eq. (9) and unconditional, Eq. (8), PDFs of L for three values of the exponent α, whereas panel (d) shows the corresponding values of L∗ such that L ≤ L∗ with 95 % probability. Panels (e) and (f) show the PDF of t calculated numerically for different values of α and (e) for Ro large enough to encompass the entire galaxy and (f) for Ro = 100 ly. Panel (g) shows the values of t∗ such that t ≤ t∗ with 95 % probability calculated for different values of Ro. -- physics.pop-ph

Astronomy & Telescopes, Imaging & Spectroscopy, SETI & Technosignatures, Status Report

Technosignatures Longevity And Lindy’s Law

by Keith CowingMay 2, 2024May 2, 2024

The probability of detecting technosignatures (i.e. evidence of technological activity beyond Earth) increases with their longevity, or the time interval over which they manifest.

n celebration of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, NASA's Great Observatories -- the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory -- have produced a matched trio of images of the central region of our Milky Way galaxy.

Astronomy & Telescopes, SETI & Technosignatures, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

A Proposal For Enhancing Technosignature Search Toward The Galactic Center

by Keith CowingApril 2, 2024April 2, 2024

We discuss the possibility of enhancing intelligent life searches toward the Galactic center. From the clockwork orbital motions of stars around the Sgr A∗ black hole, we can determine the […]

Sensitivity analysis for reduced resolution beamforming applied to MeerKAT, the MWA (compact configuration) and the EDA2. The top panels show antenna location, and the middle panels show histograms of baseline lengths for each telescope. The bottom panel shows the fractional sensitivity for reduced resolution beamforming, as a function of maximum baseline length (black lines). The minimum sensitivity is equivalent to incoherent beamforming, and maximum sensitivity is equivalent to standard beamforming. The number of beams required to cover each telescope’s field of view scales with d 2 max (dashed red lines). -- astro-ph.IM

AI - Data - Apps - Cybernetics, Astronomy & Telescopes, SETI & Technosignatures, Status Report

Reduced-resolution Beamforming: Lowering The Computational Cost For Pulsar And Technosignature Surveys

by Keith CowingFebruary 21, 2024February 20, 2024

In radio astronomy, the science output of a telescope is often limited by computational resources. This is especially true for transient and technosignature surveys that need to search high-resolution data […]