Dysonian SETI as a "Shortcut" to Detecting Habitable Planets
Abstract
The search for habitable planets is ultimately motivated by the search for inhabited planets. On Earth, the most telling signature of life is that of humanity's technology. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is thus the "ultimate" search for habitable planets.In 1960 two seminal papers in SETI were published, providing two visions for SETI. Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison's proposed detecting deliberate radio signals ("communication SETI"), while Freeman Dyson ("artifact SETI"), proposed detecting the inevitable effects of massive energy supplies and artifacts on their surroundings. While communication SETI has now had many career-long practitioners and major efforts, artifact SETI has, until recently, not been a vibrant field of study. The launch of the Kepler and WISE satellites have greatly renewed interest in the field, however, and the recent Breakthrough Listen Initiative has provided new motivation for finding good targets for communication SETI. I will discuss the progress of the Ĝ Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations with Large Energy Supplies, including its justification and motivation, waste heat search strategy and first results, and the framework for a search for megastructures via transit light curves. The last of these led to the identification of KIC 8462852 (a.k.a. "Tabby's Star") as a candidate ETI host. This star, discovered by Boyajian and the Zooniverse Planet Hunters, exhibits several apparently unique and so-far unexplained photometric properties, and continues to confound natural explanation.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFM.P11A1848W
- Keywords:
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- 5205 Formation of stars and planets;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: ASTROBIOLOGYDE: 5210 Planetary atmospheres;
- clouds;
- and hazes;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: ASTROBIOLOGYDE: 5405 Atmospheres;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLID SURFACE PLANETSDE: 5494 Instruments and techniques;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLID SURFACE PLANETS