Bright lights, big city — and possibly aliens
If alien life is out there, two scientists hope they leave the lights on.
To search for advanced extraterrestrial societies, Avi Loeb of Harvard University and Edwin Turner of Princeton University suggest in a new paper posted online Sunday, astronomers should look for city lights on distant planets. The technology already exists to look for Tokyo-sized cities at the edges of Earth’s own solar system, they said.
“Looking for alien cities would be a long shot, but wouldn’t require extra resources,’’ Loeb, said in a statement released by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge. “And if we succeed, it would change our perception of our place in the universe.’’
Loeb, the chairman of Harvard’s astronomy department, said he and Turner got the idea for their paper when they were visiting Abu Dhabi and a tour guide bragged about how the city was so bright, it could be seen from space. It seemed so obvious, Loeb said in a telephone interview, that he was “very surprised that no one suggested this before.’’
In the past, scientists have looked for alien civilizations by scanning the cosmos for radio signals or minuscule laser pulses. Like those efforts, Loeb and Turner’s proposal assumes alien cities would have technology similar to that of humans.
It’s not technically feasible yet to scan for cities on for faroff planets. However, Loeb and Turner, who submitted their article to the journal Astrobiology, suggest that scientists can first test the technique on the Kuiper belt — one of the outer rings of the solar system, which contains Pluto, Eris, and other icy bodies.
“This is like a venture capital investment,’’ Loeb said. “There’s a small chance that it will give you huge dividends.’’ Besides, Loeb said, the technology already exists and telescope surveys are already planned for the next decade — why not look for alien life within the solar system?
There could be some problems with this plan, however, as Loeb, who lives in Lexington, found out after he lost power for four days as a result of the past weekend’s freak early snowstorm.
“This led me to think, ‘I hope that the alien civilizations don’t use NStar as their electric company,’’ he said.
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