Possible Photometric Signatures of Moderately Advanced Civilizations: The Clarke Exobelt
Abstract
This paper puts forward a possible new indicator of the presence of moderately advanced civilizations on transiting exoplanets. The idea is to examine the region of space around a planet where potential geostationary or geosynchronous satellites would orbit (hereafter, the Clarke exobelt). Civilizations with a high density of devices and/or space junk in that region, but otherwise similar to ours in terms of space technology (our working definition of “moderately advanced”), may leave a noticeable imprint on the light curve of the parent star. The main contribution to such a signature comes from the exobelt edge, where its opacity is maximum due to geometrical projection. Numerical simulations have been conducted for a variety of possible scenarios. In some cases, a Clarke exobelt with a fractional face-on opacity of ∼10-4 would be easily observable with existing instrumentation. Simulations of Clarke exobelts and natural rings are used to quantify how they can be distinguished by their light curves.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- March 2018
- DOI:
- 10.3847/1538-4357/aaae66
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1802.07723
- Bibcode:
- 2018ApJ...855..110S
- Keywords:
-
- extraterrestrial intelligence;
- planets and satellites: detection;
- planets and satellites: terrestrial planets;
- Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics;
- Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- Accepted for publication in ApJ