What If Search for ET Found Us? #SETI #alien #science #space

Now that we know how to look for exoplanets… maybe we know how intelligent aliens are looking for us.

Astronomers suggest that future searches focus on that part of the sky in which distant observers can notice the yearly transit of Earth in front of the Sun… Observers in this zone could have discovered Earth with the same techniques that are used by terrestrial astronomers to discover and characterize exoplanets.

This wouldn’t solve any of the barriers to communication – mostly the vast distances involved and the huge transmission lag, even for signals at the speed of light. I’m not sure if it would be exciting or terribly sad to know there was an Earth-like planet out there that we can see and can see us, but we can’t exchange a “hello.”

Filed under: Neat Science News Tagged: alien, ET, exoplanet, Max Planck Institute, search for extraterrestrial life, SETI