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Finding Life In Space By Looking For Extraterrestrial Pollution

Posted by Soulskill on from the assuming-the-little-green-men-are-not-too-green dept.

coondoggie writes: If what we know as advanced life exists anywhere other than Earth, then perhaps they are dirtying their atmosphere as much as we are. We could use such pollution components to perhaps more easily spot such planets. That's the basis of new research published this week by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. They say that if we could spot the fingerprints of certain pollutants under ideal conditions (PDF), it would offer a new approach in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence."

7 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Major disappointment... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Funny

    After all these years of running SETI@Home, we still haven't found any extraterrestial TV signals carrying alien porn. :/

    1. Re:Major disappointment... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Well it would probably be all scrambled anyway unless we got one of those pirate boxes to descramble it for us....

      If the signal wasn't scrambled, all those naked blue-colored girls I saw on a TV as a teenager may actually be naked blue-colored girls... from SPACE!

  2. Advanced? by KeensMustard · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Would an advanced race actually do something so illogical?

    In what other ways are we assuming alien life is like us?

    1. Re:Advanced? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's worse than that. Pollution is highly specific to the existence of given technology at a given stage of development. How long, on astronomical time scales, would a given planetary atmosphere contain iodine-131 (half life 8 days) or even coal smoke, before more advanced versions of the same technology, or a different technology entirely, succeeds the one emitting the pollutant?

      Furthermore, we can only detect as pollutants substances that we already know about as side effects of our own civilization. If we were to look at some exoplenet and detect an oxygen atmosphere that has scandium dust in it, or which absorbs slightly more yellow that we think it should, we would have no way of associating this effect with possible intelligence until we experience the same kind of pollution ourselves.

    2. Re:Advanced? by WillKemp · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Pollution occurs wherever there is life.

      True. Earth was populated for millions of years by organisms that polluted the atmosphere with oxygen.

  3. Pollution as in atmospheric O2 ... by perpenso · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, pollution as in atmospheric O2, not pollution as in SUV exhaust. Atmospheric O2 is not the Earth's "normal" state, its a byproduct of life.

    If I remember correctly, Earth's original atmosphere was SO2 based and some photosynthetic creature with a sulfur based metabolism started emitting O2 as a waste product ... and so began global climate change 1.0.

  4. Great... by sycodon · · Score: 5, Funny

    Our first encounter with an alien civilization will be the EPA trying to fine them millions of dollars.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.