Astronomers are considering the possibility of massive stellar explosions serving as signals from intelligent alien civilizations in deep space.
The question arises: If advanced beings in the cosmos want to communicate across vast distances, how could they do so, given the limitations of direct visits and signals that cannot exceed the speed of light?
Scientists from the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) are exploring the concept of cosmic Schelling points: specific locations where both sides could focus their communications efforts.
Analogous to a common meeting point, such as the entrance to a shopping center, astronomers look for cosmic events that are so striking that they would naturally attract attention.
One of those candidates is the supernova, an astronomical phenomenon characterized by its enormous size and brightness. The idea is that if intelligent beings want to get our attention, a supernova would be a logical focal point.
A recent collaboration between astronomers from the Berkeley SETI Research Center, the University of Washington, and the SETI Institute focused their efforts on exploring the environment of the supernova SN 1987A for signs of extraterrestrial technosignatures, or visible alien beacons.
Unfortunately, their search did not yield conclusive results, but the pursuit of such cosmic communication points continues.
Astronomer Jason Wright of the Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center emphasized the importance of the search strategy: to report“This is a great demonstration of how we can prioritize our search efforts by thinking about the types of synchronization schemes that other species might use to get our attention.”
In the vast expanses of the cosmos, narrowing the search space is crucial to the quest to identify alien technological species.
Furthermore, the article should be of interest to METI-oriented researchers, namely Messages to Extraterrestrial Intelligences. Should a supernova occur nearby in the coming years, we could take the opportunity to send out a beacon that alerts others to our presence. Whether we should do that is another story.
