Alien City Lights

Avi Loeb, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and Edwin Turner of Princeton University, have come up with a new no-brainer for finding aliens: look for their city lights.

As reported by the Smithsonian Institution, future generations of telescopes may offer a new method of searching for extraterrestrial intelligence throughout our Galaxy.

Of course, this technique relies on the assumption that aliens use Earth-like technologies that result in brightly-lit cities. The Smithsonian points out that “any intelligent life that evolved in the light from its nearest star is likely to have artificial illumination that switches on during the hours of darkness.”

But does this work both ways; are aliens able to find us by way of our brightly-lit cities?

Not necessarily.

According to the Smithsonian, “As our technology has moved from radio and TV broadcasts to cable and fiber optics, we have become less detectable to aliens.”

Whew – what a relief!

What do you think of this method of alien-spotting?

Sound feasible?

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World News Wednesday