The North American Space Agency has announced that it is willing to find out, in a scientifically rigorous way, if we are not alone in the universe , that is, if there really are other technological civilizations outside Earth.
In fact, the United States Congress asked NASA to restart its search for other civilizations a few months ago. The first step was the workshop: NASA Technosignatures (technosignatures), which was held in Houston from September 26 to 28, 2018.
What are techno-signatures?
One of humanity’s oldest and most persistent longings is to know if there are other intelligent civilizations out there. Although it may seem like a long shot, trying is presumed irresistible. So far we have looked for clues biologically or biosignatures. But NASA believes that this approach needs to be broadened. This is where techno-signatures come in.
Technosignatures are simply evidence or fingerprints of technology. They are the effects or the signature of the technological use. The most obvious example could be radio waves, but some experts in this field reject these types of signals, because the universe is riddled with radio waves produced by natural sources. Be that as it may, we will look for signs of life advanced enough to create technology.
A glimpse of history
The SETI project of the 1970s began the search for extraterrestrial civilizations, but the ‘hunt’ was focused on intentional radio signals sent by another civilization. This new exploration will be different in scope, as technical markings are the unintended signals that provide evidence of a technological civilization.
What do techno-signatures include? Laser emissions, indications of massive megastructures like Dyson spheres or, unfortunately, also highly polluted atmospheres. However, in each of these cases, any technological signature is not detected directly, since it will require some advanced investigation techniques to determine if what the search engines are detecting are really techno-signatures.
“ Thanks to the discovery of thousands of planets beyond our solar system, including some with key similarities to Earth, it is now possible not only to imagine life meeting on other worlds, but to one day scientifically prove that life exists beyond our planet solar system, “NASA said in a statement.
This new effort comes hand in hand with the great discoveries made in recent years. For a long time we did not know if other stars had planets in their orbits, or if our solar system was unique; But the Kepler mission changed our view of the cosmos.
Kepler has discovered more than 2,600 exoplanets and is still showing us new data about the sky.
With the data we have so far, there is no reason to think that exoplanets are not abundant throughout the galaxy and the universe in general.
The new telescopes, now in the design and construction phase, will allow us to create images of exoplanets, study their atmospheres and potentially detect hot spots on their surfaces.
Nobody knows what we will find, but it is difficult not to get excited, even a little.
What is clear is that there is a lot of work to be done, but once the machine is up and running, we see a very exciting future. promises to be a very exciting endeavor.
Reference: NASA Is Taking a New Look at Searching for Life Beyond Earth. POT. 2018
Image credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA), F. Summers, G. Bacon, Z. Levay, and L. Frattare (Viz 3D Team, STScI)
