“Captain, we have detected radio signals from the third planet. And other signatures that indicate an advanced civilization.”
“On screen. Show me the charts.”
The science officer nodded to his subordinates and they quickly issued to command and the wall size screen that had previously displayed the outer edges of the star system was overlaid with a dynamic graph showing real time data gathered from the third planet.
The captain, a scientist himself, knew immediately what he was looking at.
It was a find he thought he would never be able to make in his career. It was incredible. His crew would be awarded medals for this. He would see to it from the spacers to the command staff that their records say they were a part of this momentous mission.
“Log this and send everything to command. They will want to get a diplomatic and social team out there if they chose to make contact with this world.”
“Right away, sir,” his first officer said and started working on the report.
“Sir. Somehow we are receiving a signal from someone on the third planet. It appears they have had two probes out here and have picked up our energy signature.”
ALRIGHT, maybe that is not how we will actually make contact with alien civilization but it is still exciting and I cannot wait to see how these aliens react and reach out to us (we are the third planet in this star system, in case you were wondering).
I do not know how we will meet other intelligent life forms. However, the most likely scenario is that we will find evidence of alien civilizations through the evidence of their use of advanced technologies before we meet them for coffe at a galactic equivalent of a coffee shop.
This is called technosignature or technomarker. It is any evidence of technology use in the past or present. Here, we are talking about possible detectable signatures that other worlds host alien intellgience that are cable of producing these signatures – radio, radiation, and even biosignatures like burning carbon fuel. It takes a wide range of sensors and telescopes from across the world as well as satellites and space-based telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope.
Scientists at the University of Toronto used marchine learning to find eight possible radio signals that were good candidates of technosignatures. While these signals did not conclusively suggest that they were of alien origin, more scientific efforts are being put into pursing this avenue of alien hunting.
Sure, it is not as exciting as an alien vessel entering our star system and decelerating to an orbit around Earth. Still, it is a step forward as we try to learn and expand our knowledge of space and, of course, search for the answer to the ultimate question of whether we are among a community of alien civilizations.
Pangeaverse 