In a new report published in the journal Astrobiology, researchers are reexamining the way they search for intelligent extraterrestrial life—lifeforms more substantial ancient microbes—assuming that they’re star-gazing in the same way we are, according to a Washington Post report. Scientists search for exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system, by observing them passing in front of their host stars. Essentially, space observatories, like Kepler, can determine whether a planet is floating in front of a star by detecting twinkling and blinking stars.
The star’s brightness as it waxes and wanes is used to measure the size of the planet and its distance from the star. And analysts can also determine the planet’s atmosphere by detecting how molecules scatter the light of its sun. With these observations, including the kind of star in the system, researchers can postulate the planet’s type of body, and more importantly, whether it has water storage.
NASA now believes there are more than 1 billion “Earth-like” planets in our own galaxy. This approach potentially would provide more insight because life would have had to evolve somewhat like ours on Earth. Taking the theory further, perhaps aliens are presently utilizing a telescope searching for life like their own. Then these hypothetical life-forms would be observing Earth’s “transit zone,” observing our thin fragment of space as Earth passes in front of the sun.
“It’s impossible to predict whether extraterrestrials use the same observational techniques as we do,” study co-author René Heller of the Institute for Astrophysics in Göttingen, Germany, released in a statement. “But they will have to deal with the same physical principles as we do, and Earth’s solar transits are an obvious method to detect us.”
Scientists are looking for ancient signals emitted by Earth-like planets, and once they know what direction they could come from, they would be able to capture it.