While humankind has progressed significantly in the short time it has existed on Earth, the planet isalso, for all intents and purposes, still undetectable, at least potential advanced civilizations that are also looking for life in the cosmos. If an intelligent civilization were to look in Earth’s direction, they’d likely see very little evidence that people exist or have existed. According to a new paper, however, this could change with the buildout of Elon Musk’s Starlink, which may well turn into Earth’s first “megastructure. ”
The newspaper –titled “From the SpaceX Starlink megaconstellation to the search for Type-I cultures ” and written by Zaza Osmanov, a professor in astrophysics at the Free University of Tbilisi, Georgia–notes that Starlink’s massive dimension can give Earth its first “techno-signature” that’s really visible from deep space.
An unofficial analysis of SpaceX’s first ~1600 Starlink satellites. (Credit: Mark Handley)
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A techno-signature is evidence for its use of technology or industrial activity from different parts of the Universe, which could be a fantastic means to validate the presence of an advanced culture.
As noted by Osmanov, instruments such as the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile and China’s FAST radio telescope already have sufficient technology to find megastructures such as Starlink in deep space. The professor notes that since Earth’s advanced interferometers can detect this activity from different planets today, another culture with similar or better tech would likely be able to do the same, and possibly locate Earth in the procedure.
Osmanov estimates that ultimately, Starlink could be visible to instruments like the VLT up planets to 260 light-years away, while instruments like the FAST telescope would likely have the ability to detect the megaconstellation as far out as 520 light-years away. This would require Starlink to be fully ramped, naturally, which would likely take a significant quantity of time.
The idea of people developing a megastructure invokes ideas such as the Kardashev Scale, a measure of how technologically advanced a civilization is based on how much energy it’so able to exploit. According to the Kardashev Scale, a Type-1 Civilization could exploit all of the energy that falls upon a planet from its parent star, a Type-2 culture can exploit all the energy produced by its parent star (through techniques such as a Dyson sphere), and a Type-3 culture can exploit the whole energy at a galaxy.
Osmanov notes that humans, at least for today, could be considered as a Type-0.7 culture. Though contemplating Elon Musk’s ventures such as Tesla and SpaceX, in addition to Starlink’s potential future for a megastructure that gives Earth its first techno-signature, perhaps individuals are on a route to becoming a Type-1 culture after all.
Osmanov’s newspaper, which has been approved for publication in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, could be retrieved below.
Starlink Type 1 Civilization from Simon Alvarez on Scribd
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