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I'm curious how close we are to being able to image planets to detect unnatural light. Searching for alien light pollution from planets found by Kepler would be

I'm curious how close we are to being able to image planets to detect unnatural light. Searching for alien light pollution from planets found by Kepler would be pretty neat.

deletes 13y ago
I once listened to a lecture/book from Neil deGrasse Tyson and he mentioned that for distanced over 500 lightyears, it is pretty much impossible to see any kind of artificial light from a planet. The telescope would have to be kilometers in diameter. I think the main problem is the local star and its brightness. Similar information: http://www.space.com/13514-alien-city-artificial-lights-extraterrestrial-planets.html http://www.space.com/13514-alien-city-artificial-lights-extr... Interesting question regarding telescope limits: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/17881/is-there-a-limit-to-the-resolving-power-of-a-mirror-telescope/18276#18276 http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/17881/is-there-a-...
- EthanHeilman 13y ago
  Is building a Kilometer sized telescopes really that difficult? What about a formation of satellites. Impossible is a pretty strong word to use for something that is possible but economically infeasible given current technology. I'd be curious to NDT reasoning on the subject.
  - akiselev 13y ago
    There have been a bunch of proposals for telescope satellite arrays and there are a few in progress like ARReST at Caltech & Surrey (which uses cube sats)
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    The Hubble orbits at about 600km. Getting something many km in size to orbit the earth properly might be difficult.
indiecore 13y ago
>Searching for alien light pollution from planets found by Kepler would be pretty neat. IIRC that's one of the things that James Webb is going to be used for. It'll try to take transit images of planets so we can get the spectrum of the atmosphere and look for excess oxygen and stuff.
lolcraft 13y ago
... we already do. It's called radio :)

I'm curious how close we are to being able to image planets to detect unnatural light. Searching for alien light pollution from planets found by Kepler would be pretty neat.

deletes 13y ago

I once listened to a lecture/book from Neil deGrasse Tyson and he mentioned that for distanced over 500 lightyears, it is pretty much impossible to see any kind of artificial light from a planet. The telescope would have to be kilometers in diameter. I think the main problem is the local star and its brightness. Similar information: http://www.space.com/13514-alien-city-artificial-lights-extraterrestrial-planets.html http://www.space.com/13514-alien-city-artificial-lights-extr... Interesting question regarding telescope limits: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/17881/is-there-a-limit-to-the-resolving-power-of-a-mirror-telescope/18276#18276 http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/17881/is-there-a-...

EthanHeilman 13y ago
Is building a Kilometer sized telescopes really that difficult? What about a formation of satellites. Impossible is a pretty strong word to use for something that is possible but economically infeasible given current technology. I'd be curious to NDT reasoning on the subject.
- akiselev 13y ago
  There have been a bunch of proposals for telescope satellite arrays and there are a few in progress like ARReST at Caltech & Surrey (which uses cube sats)
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  The Hubble orbits at about 600km. Getting something many km in size to orbit the earth properly might be difficult.

indiecore 13y ago

>Searching for alien light pollution from planets found by Kepler would be pretty neat. IIRC that's one of the things that James Webb is going to be used for. It'll try to take transit images of planets so we can get the spectrum of the atmosphere and look for excess oxygen and stuff.

lolcraft 13y ago

... we already do. It's called radio :)