Related papers: Novel Technosignatures
We present a model where some proportion of extraterrestrial civilizations expand uniformly over time to reach a cosmological scale. We then ask what humanity could infer if a sky survey were to find zero, one, or more such civilizations.…
Ultra Fast Astronomy is a new frontier becoming enabled by improved detector technology allowing discovery of optical transients on millisecond to nanosecond time scales. These may reveal counterparts of energetic processes such as fast…
More than a decade ago it was noticed that an unexpectedly large value of the measured cosmic antiproton flux at low kinetic energies could be interpreted in terms of a neutralino-induced component. An overproduction of low energy…
Biosensed information represents an emerging class of data with the potential for massive, systematic, and remote or casual collection of personal information about people. Biosensors capture physiological signals in addition to kinesthetic…
The discovery of exoplanets has both focused and expanded the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The consideration of Earth as an exoplanet, the knowledge of the orbital parameters of individual exoplanets, and our new understanding…
Nuclear physics offers us a powerful tool: using nuclear resonance absorption lines to infer the physical conditions in astrophysical settings which are otherwise difficult to deduce. Present-day technology provides an increase in…
The last decade has seen the rapid, concurrent development of new classes of energetic astrophysical transients, including Fast Radio Bursts, Superluminous Supernovae, and ultralong gamma-ray bursts. We consider the implications of an…
Technological civilizations may rely upon large-scale photovoltaic arrays to harness energy from their host star. Photovoltaic materials, such as silicon, possess distinctive spectral features, including an "artificial edge" that is…
We propose a novel instrument design to greatly expand the current optical and near-infrared SETI search parameter space by monitoring the entire observable sky during all observable time. This instrument is aimed to search for…
Ambitious civilizations that expand for resources at an intergalactic scale could be observable from a cosmological distance, but how likely is one to be visible to us? The question comes down to estimating the appearance rate of such…
The development of civilisations like ours into spacefaring, multi-planet entities requires significant raw materials to construct vehicles and habitats. Interplanetary debris, including asteroids and comets, may provide such a source of…
For the first time in human history, we will soon be able to apply the scientific method to the question "Are We Alone?" The rapid advance of exoplanet discovery, planetary systems science, and telescope technology will soon allow…
As we discover numerous habitable planets around other stars in the Milky Way galaxy, including the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, one cannot help but wonder why have we not detected evidence for an advanced alien civilization as of yet.…
Most searches for alien radio transmission have focused on finding omni-directional or purposefully earth-directed beams of enduring duration. However, most of the interesting signals so far detected have been transient and non-repeatable…
This white paper was submitted to NASA's Search For Life Science Analysis Group (SFL-SAG): To ensure that the first mission designed to seek signs of extant life since 1976 is able to produce an unambiguous biological interpretation, the…
An Earth-like extra-solar planet emits light which is many orders of magnitude fainter than that of the parent star. We propose a method of identifying bio-signature spectral lines in light from known extra-solar planets based on Fourier…
The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has been conducted for over sixty years, yet no technosignatures have been identified. Previous studies have focused on stars in our galaxy, with few searches in the extragalactic…
Imagining what life on other planets, and intelligent life in particular, may be like is a long-running theme in human culture. It is a manifestation of the innate human curiosity about the Cosmos, and it has inspired numerous works of art…
Finding life on exoplanets from telescopic observations is an ultimate goal of exoplanet science. Life produces gases and other substances, such as pigments, which can have distinct spectral or photometric signatures. Whether or not life is…
In a recent paper in this journal, Lingam and Loeb (2018) develop an excellent heuristic for searches for biosignatures vs. technosignatures. We consider two ways in which their approach could be extended and sharpened, with focus on…