A recent study proposes that alien civilizations could potentially pick up on the signals we use to communicate with our spacecraft and rovers—and that we might detect them in a similar way.
Radio Waves That Spill Into Space
When scientists send instructions to a Mars rover or redirect an orbiter, they rely on strong radio transmissions aimed at nearby planets in our Solar System. Their targets do not absorb all of these signals; instead, portions of the waves spill outward into space and continue indefinitely.
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory stated that anything positioned along this expanding path of radio energy could easily intercept our transmissions.
A 77 Percent Chance of Exposure
Pinchen Fan, an astronomer at Penn State, explained: Analyzing data from the past two decades, we found about a 77 percent chance that an extraterrestrial intelligence positioned where Earth and Mars align would be exposed to one of our signals—much higher than if they were randomly located.
The researchers analyzed long-term records from NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), the system used to connect with spacecraft beyond the Earth-Moon system. Since the planets orbit on a shared plane, any observers positioned along the edge of that plane—especially within roughly 23 light-years—would have the best chance to eavesdrop.
Turning the Tables on the Search
Interestingly, the same principle could help us in the search for extraterrestrial life. If other intelligent species are also exploring their own planetary systems, the most promising opportunity to catch their signals may come from systems where two planets align as seen from Earth.
“Still, since we’ve only begun detecting large numbers of exoplanets within the last couple of decades, we don’t yet know many systems that show multiple planetary transits,” noted Fan.
NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will help scientists discover hundreds of thousands of new exoplanets and greatly expand the regions available for such searches.
Read the original article on: Science Alert
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