Although this hunt came up short, it lays the groundwork for future searches using the same innovative strategy.
This applies whether its in the search for undiscovered alien civilizations or connecting with a friend on Earth.
Here, the entrance and the car serve as Schelling points.
Hubble Space Telescope image showing Supernova 1987A within the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring galaxy to our Milky Way.Image: NASA, ESA, R. Kirshner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation), and M. Mutchler and R. Avila (STScI)
The challenge is knowing where to look.
Thankfully, such a thing exists: supernovae.
Lemarchan even proposed a specific supernova:SN 1987A.
Animation showing (1) the supernova event, (2) an alien civilization detecting the supernova, (3) the alien civilization transmitting its message, (4) humans on Earth detecting the supernova and subsequently monitoring an ever-growing SETI Ellipsoid, (5) humans on Earth detecting the alien signal.Gif: Zayna Sheikh
And they did so using data gathered from NASAs ongoing Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission.
Sounds complicated, but the SETI Ellipsoid is easy to grok once you break it down.
Needless to say, the beacon would have to bear features of artificiality, i.e.
From our perspective on Earth, we should therefore search for the alien civilization within this ellipsoid.
An animated graphic (above) prepared by the SETI Institute encapsulates this concept quite adeptly.
As noted, the researchers used TESS data for their recent scan.
Looking intently at these targets, the scientists sought to discern normal behavior from potential technosignatures.
Indeed, the recent study marks a good starting point, guiding SETI researchers to explore large archival databases.
As to whether we should do that,thats another story.
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