Aliens may find Earth just as we found exoplanets

According to a study accepted in the scientific journal The Planetary Science Journal and published on the preprint server arVix, a team of astronomers shows that: Alien civilization could collect information from Earth if they had their own telescope, such as an ‘extraterrestrial’ version of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). In other words, they could ‘easily’ visualize the Earth depending on the region they lived in.

Just as we can collect information from exoplanets millions of light years away, this alien civilization will be able to collect data from our planet. In addition to exploring the possibility of life on Earth, aliens will also likely discover that there is an intelligent civilization here.

The Earth’s atmosphere is rich in methane, Molecules such as nitrogen dioxide, as well as oxygen and other elements that suggest the existence of life, suggest that the planet has undergone changes caused by some kind of industrial civilization.. In other words, if would-be aliens collected data from a telescope as powerful as JWST, perhaps they would already know that humanity exists and lives on Earth.

“The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will enable the search and characterization of the atmospheres of terrestrial exoplanets in the habitable zone using transmission spectroscopy. However, relatively little work has been done to use data from the solar system where the ground truth is known to validate spectroscopic access codes intended for exoplanet studies, especially in cases of high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio,” the study explains.

James Webb Telescope and aliens

The scientists’ idea wasn’t exactly aimed at aliens, but it showed how to calculate data obtained from the Earth’s atmosphere with an infrared telescope. Thus, they confirmed the existence of life on planet Earth by detecting carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, water vapor and even chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs); Something aliens could do if they had a similar telescope.

Well, It is assumed that from this data aliens can discover the existence of life and technology on the planet.because CFCs can only be produced using an artificial force created by a civilization. According to scientists, the model will help the team understand the complexity of Earth-like exoplanets.

“In this study, we have only begun to scratch the surface of what is possible with this reference data set, and we encourage community participation in using these data for continued validation and model improvement as the field advances toward definitive characterization of Earth-like exoplanets.” , explains the study.

Always stay up to date with astronomy curiosities at TecMundo and, if you wish, learn which exoplanets should be considered Earth-like.