Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
- Technosignatures are theoretical signs of technologically advanced alien civilizations, but so far, none of those civilizations have phoned home.
- Researchers from the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Post-Detection Hub have now come up with suggestions for NASA to level up its detection methods.
- By taking an interdisciplinary approach and using the most advanced technology possible, NASA may finally catch sight of a sign that someone else is out there.
In the endless search for technosignatures—signs from some technologically advanced intelligent alien civilization—we’ve done everything from monitoring radio arrays to hypothesizing about whether space rocks like ‘Oumuamua and 31/ATLAS are actually alien starships stealthily traversing the cosmos in disguise. We have even sent out technosignatures of our own—those golden records on both Voyager spacecraft come to mind—but have heard nothing back.
Earthlings have been ghosted every time we tried phoning E.T. Now an international team of researchers associated with the SETI Post-Detection Hub at the University of St. Andrews in the U.K. has come up with an alien hunting playbook for NASA, which emphasizes what the agency’s most important goals should be in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. They urge NASA to prepare for possible technosignature detections and highlight how it can carry out research based on evidence, emphasizing the need for interdisciplinary work, communication, predictive strategies, and possible methods of detection for the future.
NASA already has a strong astrobiology foundation in the form of its Astrobiology Federation, Center For Life Detection, and Biosignatures Standards of Evidence Workshop. Biosignatures are biological signs of life that could give away the existence of any life-form, such as microbes swimming around in an alien ocean, but technosignatures (such as the golden records, industrial emissions, and all the space junk we release into near-Earth orbit) can only be created by an advanced civilization.
The SETI Post-Detection Hub advises NASA to zero in on what they call their six “key dimensions.” These include, according to a paper the research team recently posted to the preprint server arXiv, “advanced detection technologies and methodologies, innovative ‘Other Minds’ paradigms beyond anthropocentric assumptions, humanities and social sciences for interpreting public response, ethics and governance, strategic foresight, scenario planning, and anticipatory governance, public communication strategies and research, and global coordination on infrastructures for resilience and sustained preparedness.”
As we make our own advances in technology, we will also keep upgrading the ways we search for technosignatures. Some methods will involve AI, but others will merely take the form of improvements to how signals are analyzed, which could allow anomalous things that could not be seen before to be captured. NASA’s upcoming, extremely powerful Vera C. Rubin observatory and Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will both see further into space with more detail than anything ever has, which makes them ideal for seeking out technosignatures. In anticipation of both of these telescopes seeing first light, the research team suggests that NASA create a sensing strategy that can identify more complex structures than space rocks whizzing by.
Something else the SETI Post-Detection Hub strongly suggests is to push the limits of existing technology and (possibly) create new tech. They use LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) as an outstanding example. LIGO revolutionized gravitational wave detection, and NASA could potentially develop a sensing system that does the same thing for technosignature identification.
We could also work to narrow our search parameters by further analyzing environments like Mars, which could potentially tell us how likely alien planets are to spawn life. This is why the researchers want to see efforts to conserve the environment on the Red Planet—to prevent any microbial life-forms (if they exist) or signs of them (if they ever existed) from going extinct. Evidence of anything that is alive (or was once alive) on Mars could mean that other organisms are out there in the broader cosmos, though nobody knows whether these hypothetical organisms are intelligent by human standards.
When searching for aliens, we may start with knowledge based on what we know of our home planet, but we also need to look beyond human cognition if we want to have any idea of what a technologically advanced civilization might look like. Figuring out the inner workings of alien minds is something we can never know we have right until and unless we actually run into other intelligent beings. However, the researchers propose that deeper research into non-human communication—such as AI, bioacoustics, and quantum computing—could give us some insights into how alien civilizations might communicate.
“NASA Astrobiology can establish adaptive operational frameworks for real-time global coordination, ensuring robust communication, governance, and technological resilience in the event of a detection,” the SETI team said. “We recommend that NASA embeds interdisciplinary expertise into ongoing research, policy development, and public engagement, and engages with international SETI PostDetection efforts.”
Elizabeth Rayne is a creature who writes. Her work has appeared in Popular Mechanics, Ars Technica, SYFY WIRE, Space.com, Live Science, Den of Geek, Forbidden Futures and Collective Tales. She lurks right outside New York City with her parrot, Lestat. When not writing, she can be found drawing, playing the piano or shapeshifting.
