While an alien could not see us without coming here, why pick here as opposed to all the other stars? We see exoplanets and speculate on whether they could hold life, but how many exoplanets could see our planet, if they held life with technology like ours or a little better? When I wrote the first edition of my ebook “Planetary Formation and Biogenesis” I listed a few techniques to find planets. Then, the most had been found through detecting the wobble of stars through the frequency changes of their line spectra to which a Doppler shift was added. The wobble is caused by the gravity of the planets. Earth would be very difficult to see that way because it is too small. This works best with very large planets very close to stars.
While there are several methods for discovering planets that work occasionally, one is particularly productive, and that is to measure the light intensity coming from the star. If a planet crosses our line of sight, the light dims. Maybe not a lot, but it dims. If you have seen an eclipse of the sun you will get the idea, but if you have seen a transit of Venus or of Mercury you will know the effect is not strong. This is very geometry specific because you have to be able to draw a straight line between your eye, the planet and part of the star and the further the planet is from the star, the smaller the necessary angle. To give an idea of the problem, our planetary system was created more or less on the equatorial plane of the accretion disk that formed the sun, so we should at least see transits of our inner planets, right? Well, not exactly because the various orbits do not lie on one plane. My phrase “more or less” indicates the problem – we have to be exactly edge-on to the plane unless the planet is really close to the star, when geometry lends a hand because the star is so big that something small crossing in front can be seen from wider angles.
Nevertheless, the Kepler telescope has seen many such exoplanets. Interestingly, the Kepler telescope, besides finding a number of stars with multiple planets close to the star has also found a number of stars with only one planet at a good distance from the star. That does not mean there are no other planets; it may mean nothing more than that one is accidentally the only one whose orbital plane lies on our line of sight. The others may, like Venus, be on slightly different planes. When I wrote that ebook, it was obvious that suitable stars were not that common, and since we were looking at stars one at a time over an extended period, not many planets would be discovered. The Kepler telescope changed that because when it came into operation, it could view hundreds of thousands of stars simultaneously.
All of which raises the interesting question, how many aliens, if they had good astronomical techniques, could see us by this method, assuming they looked at our sun? Should we try to remain hidden or not? Can we, if we so desired?
In a recent paper from Nature (594, pp505 – 507 2021) it appears that 1,715 stars within 100 parsecs of the sun (i.e. our “nearest neighbours”) would have been in a position to spot us over the last 5,000 years, while an additional 319 stars will have the opportunity over the next 5,000 years. Stars might look as if they are fixed in position, but actually they are speedily moving, and not all in the same direction.
Among this set of stars are seven known to have exoplanets, including Ross 128, which could have seen us in the past but no longer, and Teegarden’s star and Trappist-1, which will start to have the opportunity in 29 years and 1642 years respectively. Most of these are Red Dwarfs, and if you accept my analysis in my ebook, then they will not have technological life. The reason is the planets with composition suitable to generate biogenesis will be too close to the star so will be far too hot, and yet probably receive insufficient higher frequency light to drive anything like photosynthesis.
Currently, an Earth transit could be seen from 1402 stars, and this includes 128 G-type stars, like our sun. There are 73 K stars, which may also be suitable to house life. There are also 63 F-type stars. These stars are larger than the sun, from 1.07 to 1.4 times the size, and are much hotter than the sun. Accordingly, they turn out more UV, which might be problematical for life, although the smaller ones may be suitable and the Earth-equivalent planet will be a lot further from the star. However, they are also shorter-lived, so the bigger ones may not have had time. About 2/3 of these stars are in a more restricted transit zone, and could, from geometry, observe an Earth transit for ten hours. So there are a number of stars from which we cannot hide. Ten hours would give a dedicated astronomer with the correct equipment plenty of time to work out we have oxygen and an ozone layer, and that means life must be here.
Another option is to record our radio waves. We have been sending them out for about 100 years, and about 75 of our 1402 stars identified above are within that distance that could give visual confirmation via observing a transit. We cannot hide. However, that does not mean any of those stars could do anything about it. Even if planets around them have life, that does not mean it is technological, and even if it were, that does not mean they can travel through interstellar space. After all, we cannot. Nevertheless, it is an interesting matter to speculate about.
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