Related papers: Longevity is the key factor in the search for tech…
Almost all SETI searches to date have explicitly targeted stars in the hope of detecting artificial radio or optical transmissions. It is argued that extra-terrestrials (ET) might regard sending physical probes to our own Solar System as a…
No present observations suggest a technologically advanced extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) has spread through the galaxy. However, under commonplace assumptions about galactic civilization formation and expansion, this absence of…
As our ability to undertake more powerful Searches for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) grows, so does interest in the more controversial endeavour of Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI). METI proponents point to the SETI…
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.…
Thousands of planets beyond our solar system have been discovered to date, dozens of which are rocky in composition and are orbiting within the circumstellar habitable zone of their host star. The next frontier in life detection beyond our…
The upcoming TESS mission is expected to find thousands of transiting planets around bright stars, yet for three-quarters of the fields observed the temporal coverage will limit discoveries to planets with orbital periods below 13.7 days.…
Recently, many Earth-sized planets have been discovered around stars other than the Sun that might possess appropriate conditions for life. The development of theoretical methods for assessing the putative habitability of these worlds is of…
Applying a principle of "radical mundanity", this paper examines explanations for the lack of strong evidence for the presence of technology-using extraterrestrial civilizations (ETCs) in the Galaxy - the Fermi paradox. With this principle,…
This paper develops a detailed quantitative model which uses the Drake equation and an assumption of an average maximum radio broadcasting distance by an communicative civilization to derive a minimum civilization density for contact…
Astronomy is in an era where all-sky surveys are mapping the Galaxy. The plethora of photometric, spectroscopic, asteroseismic and astrometric data allows us to characterise the comprising stars in detail. Here we quantify to what extent…
Searches for radio technosignatures place constraints on the prevalence of extraterrestrial transmitters in our Galaxy and beyond. It is important to account for the complete stellar population captured within a radio telescope's field of…
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence aims to find evidence of technosignatures, which can point toward the possible existence of technologically advanced extraterrestrial life. Radio signals similar to those engineered on Earth may…
Following genetic ancestry in eukaryote populations poses several open problems due to sexual reproduction and recombination. The history of extant genetic material is usually modeled backwards in time, but tracking chromosomes at a large…
The goal of the article is to explore what is the most probable type of simulation in which humanity lives (if any) and how this affects simulation termination risks. We firstly explore the question of what kind of simulation in which…
The discovery of inhabited exoplanets hinges on identifying biosignature gases. JWST can reveal biosignature gases, though current discoveries have yet to evidence life. The central challenge is attribution: how can we confidently identify…
A central challenge in observational studies of galaxy formation is how to associate progenitor galaxies with their descendants at lower redshifts. One promising approach is to link galaxies at fixed number density, rather than fixed…
Stars, and collections of stars, encode rich signatures of stellar physics and galaxy evolution. With properties influenced by both their environment and intrinsic nature, stars retain information about astrophysical phenomena that are not…
The Drake Equation has proven fertile ground for speculation about the abundance, or lack thereof, of communicating extraterrestrial intelligences (CETIs) for decades. It has been augmented by subsequent authors to include random variables…
We hereby consider the problem of detectability of macro-engineering projects over interstellar distances, in the context of Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Freeman J. Dyson and his imaginative precursors, like Konstantin…
Understanding the evolution of galaxies provides crucial insights into a broad range of aspects in astrophysics, including structure formation and growth, the nature of dark energy and dark matter, baryonic physics, and more. It is,…