Bibcode
Socas-Navarro, H.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 855, Issue 2, article id. 110, 7 pp. (2018).
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3
2018
Journal
Citations
16
Refereed citations
14
Description
This paper puts forward a possible new indicator of the presence of
moderately advanced civilizations on transiting exoplanets. The idea is
to examine the region of space around a planet where potential
geostationary or geosynchronous satellites would orbit (hereafter, the
Clarke exobelt). Civilizations with a high density of devices and/or
space junk in that region, but otherwise similar to ours in terms of
space technology (our working definition of “moderately
advanced”), may leave a noticeable imprint on the light curve of
the parent star. The main contribution to such a signature comes from
the exobelt edge, where its opacity is maximum due to geometrical
projection. Numerical simulations have been conducted for a variety of
possible scenarios. In some cases, a Clarke exobelt with a fractional
face-on opacity of ∼10‑4 would be easily observable
with existing instrumentation. Simulations of Clarke exobelts and
natural rings are used to quantify how they can be distinguished by
their light curves.
Related projects
Magnetism, Polarization and Radiative Transfer in Astrophysics
Magnetic fields pervade all astrophysical plasmas and govern most of the variability in the Universe at intermediate time scales. They are present in stars across the whole Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, in galaxies, and even perhaps in the intergalactic medium. Polarized light provides the most reliable source of information at our disposal for the
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