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Deliberate attempts for Contact extraterrestrial civilizations, Like the famous Arecibo messagethey have not received an answer. But what takes the dream of a group of cosmologists are not our well -intentioned messages, but those who send without realizing all the airports in the world.
An incredibly powerful beacon. We have been shouting at the cosmos for decades without even pretending, betraying our existence in more than 120,000 nearby star systems.
A new investigation presented in the Royal Astronomical Society It reveals that the combined electromagnetic leakage of all our airports form a very powerful beacon. According to the study, the signal is so intense that a civilization with technology similar to ours could detect it at a distance of up to 200 light years.
Civil and military aviation radars. Researchers at the University of Mercanster simulated how radar signals that are used to control air traffic spread in space. The conclusion is amazing: the combined power of civil aviation radars adds 2 × 10¹⁵ watts, a sufficient figure for a radio telescope to capture hundreds of light years.
But the thing doesn’t end there. Military radars, although they have a accumulated power of less than 1 × 10¹⁴ watts, create a pattern that sweeps the sky like a lighthouse. This signal will seem clearly artificial for anyone who observes from interstellar distances. In fact, it can be up to 100 times more powerful than the background signals, depending on the location of the observer.
Our accidental technofirma since 1950. While the detection potential is 200 light years, these radar systems only emit with a similar intensity Since the 1950swhich means that our unintentious signal has expanded for now about 75 light years in all directions.
Our technofirma has already reached nearby star systems as next centauri (4 light years), the star of Barnard (6 light years) and au microscopii (32 light years), but we still have to wait another 125 years to spread to the maximum and be detected in a radius of 200 light years.
There are two ways to take this. On the one hand, we are sending the entire neighborhood an unequivocal sign that there is intelligent life on Earth. Figures such as astronomer David Brin have been Very critical of the idea of “shouting to the cosmos” without first establishing a global consensus. It is an arrogant decision, he argues, because he could end up affecting all humanity.
On the other hand, the study gives us an important clue to The search for extraterrestrial life: If there are other civilizations such as ours, perhaps the easiest signs to locate are not their messages, but the radars of their airports.
Image | Masterphoto-Dk (CC by 2.0)
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