TY - JOUR
T1 - Search for an Alien Message to a Nearby Star
AU - Gillon, Michaël
AU - Burdanov, Artem
AU - Wright, Jason T.
N1 - Funding Information:
TRAPPIST-South is funded by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (Fond National de la Recherche Scientifique, FNRS) under the grant FRFC 2.5.594.09.F, with the participation of the Swiss National Science Fundation (SNF). SPECULOOS-South has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013; grant agreement No. 336480/SPECULOOS) and under the 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. 803193/BEBOP), from the Balzan Prize Foundation, from the Belgian Scientific Research Foundation (F.R.S.-FNRS; grant No. T.0109.20), from the University of Liege, from the ARC grant for Concerted Research Actions financed by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, from the Simons Foundation (PI D. Queloz, grant No. 327127), from the MERAC foundation, and from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC; grant No. ST/S00193X/1). M.G. is FNRS Research Director.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
PY - 2022/11/1
Y1 - 2022/11/1
N2 - If alien probes have colonized the whole galaxy, they could have formed an efficient galactic-scale communication network by establishing direct gravitationally lensed links between neighboring systems. Under this scenario, observing the positions opposite the nearest ecliptic stars represents a promising artifact SETI strategy that could make it possible to “eavesdrop” on the emission of local probes to one of these stars. In this context, we present here a first attempt to detect optical messages emitted from the solar system to the ecliptic star Wolf 359, the third-nearest stellar system, based on observations gathered by the TRAPPIST-South and SPECULOOS-South robotic telescopes. While sensitive enough to detect constant emission with emitting power as small as a few watts, this search led to a null result. We note that the putative alien probes could be emitting “off-axis” and be located much closer to the Sun than the start of the “solar gravitational line” at 550 au. We performed a search for such an off-axis emitter in our data, whose result turned out negative too.
AB - If alien probes have colonized the whole galaxy, they could have formed an efficient galactic-scale communication network by establishing direct gravitationally lensed links between neighboring systems. Under this scenario, observing the positions opposite the nearest ecliptic stars represents a promising artifact SETI strategy that could make it possible to “eavesdrop” on the emission of local probes to one of these stars. In this context, we present here a first attempt to detect optical messages emitted from the solar system to the ecliptic star Wolf 359, the third-nearest stellar system, based on observations gathered by the TRAPPIST-South and SPECULOOS-South robotic telescopes. While sensitive enough to detect constant emission with emitting power as small as a few watts, this search led to a null result. We note that the putative alien probes could be emitting “off-axis” and be located much closer to the Sun than the start of the “solar gravitational line” at 550 au. We performed a search for such an off-axis emitter in our data, whose result turned out negative too.
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U2 - 10.3847/1538-3881/ac9610
DO - 10.3847/1538-3881/ac9610
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85141718099
SN - 0004-6256
VL - 164
JO - Astronomical Journal
JF - Astronomical Journal
IS - 5
M1 - 221
ER -