ALIEN civilizations could be detected if they are using solar panel technology, researchers have suggested.
Researchers believe aliens may be using solar energy if they are more advanced than humans.
The findings were published in a paper posted to the arXiv.
The study is titled Detectability of Solar Panels as a Technosignature.
Researchers suggested it is likely aliens are more technologically advanced than humans.
This would mean they would have a good understanding of some of our most advanced technology.
It would be ideal if aliens use solar energy because humans may be able to trace signals from it.
If aliens are using solar panels, researchers believe they would be large-scale making them easier to detect.
Researchers believe an alien planet is orbiting its own sun-like star which they would use the solar panels with.
The signals the alien solar panels give off would be considered a technosignature.
Another study from 2017 found that solar panels on Earth give off a “red edge” that is detectable from space.
The red edge was researched by Avi Loeb and Manasvi Lingam from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics at the time.
“Future observations of reflected light from exoplanets would be able to detect both natural and artificial edges photometrically if a significant fraction of the planet’s surface is covered by vegetation or photovoltaic arrays, respectively,” Lingam and Loeb said in their study.
The recent study goes off of Lingam and Loeb’s research about the red edge and has applied to what alien planets could be capable of.
Lingham and Loeb said there could be a possibility of alien planets.
But the new research wanted to know exactly how this could be possible.
“The ‘edge’ refers to the noticeable increase in the reflectance of the material under consideration when a reflected light spectrum is taken of the planet.”
The signals could be detected through a space-based mission concept like the Habitable Worlds Observatory, the researchers said.
The HWO is a telescope that would try to track down another planet similar to Earth.
The next step would be to see if it is giving off the solar panel signals.
However, the HWO has not been created yet and would need to be to complete such research.
Researchers are hopeful the HWO will get approved to be created.
