NASA: Extraterrestrial civilizations may use invisible technologies
Astronomers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center have explained the apparent lack of evidence of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations. According to the article, published In The Astrophysical Journal, aliens may use more stealthy technologies to harvest energy, rather than building giant structures like Dyson spheres.
The researchers used satellite data to model an Earth-like planet with varying levels of silicon solar panel coverage. They then assessed whether the solar panels would serve as a technosignature that could be detected by NASA’s upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory telescope.
It turned out that it would take several hundred hours of observations to detect solar panels covering about 23 percent of the land area on the exoplanet. However, to provide a high standard of living for a population of 30 billion people, solar panel coverage of only about 8.9 percent of the area would be sufficient.
This result is based on the assumption that advanced civilizations could use silicon to create solar panels due to its abundance and efficient conversion of sunlight into electricity. However, if aliens use other energy sources, such as nuclear fusion, this could make the technosignature of silicon batteries even more elusive, making them harder to detect.
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