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Astrometric study of Gaia DR2 stars for interstellar communication

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2020

Naoki Seto Open the ORCID record for Naoki Seto [Opens in a new window]  and
Kazumi Kashiyama
Naoki Seto*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Kyoto University, Kyoto606-8502, Japan
Kazumi Kashiyama
Affiliation:
Research Center for the Early Universe, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo113-0033, Japan Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo113-0033, Japan
*
Author for correspondence: Naoki Seto, E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

We discuss the prospects of high precision pointing of our transmitter to habitable planets around Galactic main sequence stars. For an efficient signal delivery, the future sky positions of the host stars should be appropriately extrapolated with accuracy better than the beam opening angle Θ of the transmitter. Using the latest data release (DR2) of Gaia, we estimate the accuracy of the extrapolations individually for 4.7 × 107 FGK stars, and find that the total number of targets could be ~107 for the accuracy goal better than 1″. Considering the pairwise nature of communication, our study would be instructive also for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), not only for sending signals outward.

Keywords

Extraterrestrial intelligenceastrobiology
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Astrobiology , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , August 2020 , pp. 308 - 313
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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