Alien technosignatures could be our introduction to extraterrestrial life

[UM-Bot]

Two astronomers discuss their efforts to scour the heavens for signs of extraterrestrial technology.

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/361523/alien-technosignatures-could-be-our-introduction-to-extraterrestrial-life

[pallidin]

Whereas most detection schemes seem wholly impractical or the signal simply too faint, for myself I do like the idea of detecting "chemical pollutant signatures" in an extrasolar planets' atmosphere.

With the recently deployed James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), I understand that part of the planned efforts for JWST is to do that form of investigation.

[astrobeing]

15 hours ago, pallidin said:

Whereas most detection schemes seem wholly impractical or the signal simply too faint, for myself I do like the idea of detecting "chemical pollutant signatures" in an extrasolar planets' atmosphere.

But the flaw is that we have to assume the planet is exactly like Earth before we can assume that a chemical in its atmosphere couldn't have been produced naturally, on a planet we know nothing about. We don't know all the ways these presumed pollutants could have been produced naturally.

We already went through this chemical signature fiasco two years ago with phosphine.

[Ell]

I was the last human being on Earth alife due to sheer obstinacy. I was sitting in my eighty square foot palace composing a poem when I was disturbed.

 

Someone or some thing had knocked on my door!

 

I refused to open the door. I refused to open the door for ninety days, when my supplies ran out.

 

I refused to open the door for twenty more days, as I can be quite stubborn.

 

Then, emaciated, I opened the door.

 

It was Death, of course, complete with scythe and hourglass and a clipboard. He looked at his clipboard. "You forgot to pay your taxes," he said.

 

'Oh, hi Death. Sorry to have kept you waiting.  I thought it was aliens," I explained. I paid him my taxes and then I was rid of him for another year.