Are we being watched?

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Are we being watched? Tens of other worlds could spot the Earth

Quote

A group of scientists from Queen’s University Belfast and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany have turned exoplanet-hunting on its head, in a study that instead looks at how an alien observer might be able to detect Earth using our own methods. They find that at least nine exoplanets are ideally placed to observe transits of Earth, in a new work published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Thanks to facilities and missions such as SuperWASP and Kepler, we have now discovered thousands of planets orbiting stars other than our Sun, worlds known as ‘exoplanets’. The vast majority of these are found when the planets cross in front of their host stars in what are known as ‘transits’, which allow astronomers to see light from the host star dim slightly at regular intervals every time the planet passes between us and the distant star.

  Read More: Royal Astronomical Society

 

[+Hammerclaw]

Interesting question, yet what would observers have seen, peering down at Earth from skies undreamed as the sun has changed position, relative to other stars in it's orbit of galactic center? For much of it's history a nondescript little world, notable for it's massive moon, either frozen or awash with nary a sign of life save for the microscopic, perhaps catalogued  and forgotten. It strains credulity to think that now there is something to look out at other planets of other stars, that at the same point in time something is looking back. Of course, it is a possibility, predicated on the acceptance of other equally unlikely possibilities. 

[Sundew]

They must get a good laugh at the old alien sic-fi movies whose signals may have reached them.  

 If they have seen newsreels of WWII they have probably stamped our world "Quarantined: Off Limits!" or are planning to blow us up. 

[GlitterRose]

7 minutes ago, Sundew said:

They must get a good laugh at the old alien sic-fi movies whose signals may have reached them.  

 If they have seen newsreels of WWII they have probably stamped our world "Quarantined: Off Limits!" or are planning to blow us up. 

So long and thanks for all the fish...so sad that it should come to this...

 

[Boozemonkey]

I've tried waving to them. But they're not waving back...

[taniwha]

On 10/09/2017 at 5:44 AM, Sundew said:

They must get a good laugh at the old alien sic-fi movies whose signals may have reached them.  

 

Of course! Our old alien movies would be like a silent Charlie Chaplin comedy to them.

Yes, even their sense of humour will be light years ahead of ours...