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Hi All, I'm also one of the scientists involved. While we'd love to go "hunting for aliens" directly, this project is more about how to recognize evidence of industrialization from afar. As you likely know, extrasolar planets are being discovered left and right, and so the next step in the process of discovery will be to measure the composition of those atmospheres because they may give clues to the processes happening on the planetary surface. But what are we going to compare those compositions to? Modern Earth? Sure, but one data point is not terribly great, so our work here is to build a database of atmospheric compositions that would be strong contenders for having an industrialized civilization below. It turns out it's more straightforward to measure "industrial pollution" in an atmosphere than natural occurring gases that may be in disequilibrium because of timid biological processes. But we need your support to do this! And you can be involved by contributing. We are a non-profit science institute passionate about space exploration, astrobiology, and science communication. Your donations to this project are tax deductible as we have 501(c)3 status. http://www.petridish.org/projects/do-aliens-use-hairspray You can find out more about our research at http://www.bmsis.org/publications, or join our space exploration and astrobiology social/collaborative network at http://www.saganet.org./ But where we need your financial support today is at http://www.petridish.org/projects/do-aliens-use-hairspray Thanks for your time! And don't hesitate to post questions! ..and follow us on Twitter! @BlueMarbleSpace, @Saganorg, #alienhairspray - cheers

Hi All, I'm also one of the scientists involved. While we'd love to go "hunting for aliens" directly, this project is more about how to recognize evidence of industrialization from afar. As you likely know, extrasolar planets are being discovered left and right, and so the next step in the process of discovery will be to measure the composition of those atmospheres because they may give clues to the processes happening on the planetary surface. But what are we going to compare those compositions to? Modern Earth? Sure, but one data point is not terribly great, so our work here is to build a database of atmospheric compositions that would be strong contenders for having an industrialized civilization below. It turns out it's more straightforward to measure "industrial pollution" in an atmosphere than natural occurring gases that may be in disequilibrium because of timid biological processes. But we need your support to do this! And you can be involved by contributing. We are a non-profit science institute passionate about space exploration, astrobiology, and science communication. Your donations to this project are tax deductible as we have 501(c)3 status. http://www.petridish.org/projects/do-aliens-use-hairspray You can find out more about our research at http://www.bmsis.org/publications, or join our space exploration and astrobiology social/collaborative network at http://www.saganet.org./ But where we need your financial support today is at http://www.petridish.org/projects/do-aliens-use-hairspray Thanks for your time! And don't hesitate to post questions! ..and follow us on Twitter! @BlueMarbleSpace, @Saganorg, #alienhairspray - cheers

And answer to this could lie in the future of our own solar system. Let's say for a moment that the upper-end of the IPCC predictions actually occur and we are looking at 5-10 C rise in global average temperature over the next 500 years. Disaster? Yes End of the World? No - but it will make conditions here much more difficult... Mars is a cold planet, and leaving the ethics part of it aside for the moment, could be a very desirable place to live, if it wasn't so damn cold. One way to warm it up would be to artificially pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, in an attempt to warm up the CO2/H2O ice caps. Our scientific question is would this world be astronomically detectable - we think that the answer might be yes, which would be really cool. (Even if we could pull this off, we would still need pressure and oxygen to breathe). PS - I'm one of the scientists involved. Shameless plug for project here: http://www.petridish.org/projects/do-aliens-use-hairspray

I'm one of the scientists involved in the project. We see this primarily as a search for terraformed worlds, rather than looking for inadvertent technological byproducts. We've started a kickstarter-like drive to do the fundamental research needed to find out if an actively terraformed world would be detectable over astronomical distances. Details are here: http://www.petridish.org/projects/do-aliens-use-hairspray -Mark

from his Contrary Brin blog:

"... how about crowd sourcing to help fund science research: Choose your own projects through Petridish: a crowdfunding site, where scientists can showcase their research to the public. In exchange, you will receive updates, acknowledgement and/or various rewards (photographs, DVD, field samples, journal acknowledgment, or invitations to talks/dinner), plus the satisfaction of assisting scientists trying to understand our world. (Donations are not currently tax deductible.) Way cool."