Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T15:22:50.802Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Detection of pre-industrial societies on exoplanets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2020

Andrew Lockley Open the ORCID record for Andrew Lockley [Opens in a new window]  and
Daniele Visioni Open the ORCID record for Daniele Visioni [Opens in a new window]
Andrew Lockley*
Affiliation:
The Bartlett, UCL Faculty of the Built Environment, 22 Gordon Street, LondonWC1H 0QB, UK
Daniele Visioni
Affiliation:
Sibley School for Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
*
Author for correspondence: Andrew Lockley, E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Approximately 22% of sun-like stars have Earth-like exoplanets. Advanced civilizations may exist on these, and significant effort has been expended on the theoretical analysis of planetary systems, and accompanying practical detection instruments.

The longevity of technological civilizations is unknown, as is the probability of less advanced societies becoming technological. Accordingly, searching for pre-industrial extra-terrestrial societies may be more productive.

Using the earth as a model, a consideration of possible detectible proxies suggests that observation of seasonal agriculture may be possible in the near future – particularly in ideal circumstances, for which quantitative analysis is provided. More speculatively, other detectible processes may include: species introduction; climate change; large urban fires and land-use or aquatic changes.

Primitive societies may be both aware that their activities may be observed from other planets, and may deliberately adjust these activities to aid or conceal detection.

Keywords

Exoplanetextra-terrestrial intelligencepre-industrialSETI
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Astrobiology , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , February 2021 , pp. 73 - 80
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abdelkrim, J, Pascal, M, Calmet, C and Samadi, S (2005) Importance of assessing population genetic structure before eradication of invasive species: examples from insular Norway rat populations. Conservation Biology 19, 1509–1518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, CB, Griffith, CR, Rosemond, AD, Rozzi, R and Dollenz, O (2006) The effects of invasive North American beavers on riparian plant communities in Cape Horn, Chile. Biological Conservation 128, 467–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asner, GP and Vitousek, PM (2005) Remote analysis of biological invasion and biogeochemical change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102, 4383–4386.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bailey, J (2007) Rainbows, polarization, and the search for habitable planets. Astrobiology 7, 320–332.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barnes, R and Heller, R (2013) Habitable planets around white and brown dwarfs: the perils of a cooling primary. Astrobiology 13, 279–291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baskin, NJ, Knutson, HA, Burrows, A, Fortney, JJ, Lewis, NK, Agol, E, … Showman, AP (2013) Secondary eclipse photometry of the exoplanet WASP-5b With WARMSPITZER. The Astrophysical Journal 773, 124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Batalha, NE, Marley, MS, Lewis, NK and Fortney, JJ (2019) Exoplanet reflected-light spectroscopy with PICASO. The Astrophysical Journal 878, 70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beichman, C, Gómez, G, Lo, M, Masdemont, J and Romans, L (2004) Searching for life with the terrestrial planet finder: Lagrange point options for a formation flying interferometer. Advances in Space Research 34, 637–644.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belu, AR, Selsis, F, Morales, J-C, Ribas, I, Cossou, C and Rauer, H (2010) Primary and secondary eclipse spectroscopy with JWST: exploring the exoplanet parameter space. Astronomy & Astrophysics 525, A83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biller, B (2013) Detecting and characterizing exoplanets with direct imaging: past, present, and future. Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union 8, 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birkby, JL (2018) Spectroscopic direct detection of exoplanets. In Deeg, H and Belmonte, J (eds). Handbook of Exoplanets. Cham: Springer. doi:1485–1508. 10.1007/978-3-319-55333-7_16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boisier, JP, de Noblet-Ducoudré, N and Ciais, P (2013) Inferring past land use-induced changes in surface albedo from satellite observations: a useful tool to evaluate model simulations. Biogeosciences 10(3), 1501–1516. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/bg-10-1501-2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowman, DMJS, Walsh, A and Prior, LD (2004) Landscape analysis of aboriginal fire management in Central Arnhem Land, north Australia. 31(2), 207–223. 10.1046/j.0305-0270.2003.00997.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brode, HL and Small, RD (1986) A review of the physics of large urban fires. In Solomon, F, Marston, RQ and Institute of Medicine (US) Steering Committee for the Symposium on the Medical Implications of Nuclear War (eds), The medical implications of nuclear war. Washington, D.C.: National Academics, pp. 73–95.Google Scholar
Castello, JD, Leopold, DJ and Smallidge, PJ (1995) Pathogens, patterns, and processes in forest ecosystems. BioScience 45, 16–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Catala, C (2008) PLATO: pLAnetary transits and oscillations of stars. Experimental Astronomy 23, 329–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cessa, V, Beck, T, Benz, W, Broeg, C, Ehrenreich, D, Fortier, A, Peter, G, Magrin, D, Pagano, I, Plesseria, J.-Y, Steller, M, Szoke, J, Thomas, N, Ragazzoni, R and Wildi, F (2017) CHEOPS: a space telescope for ultra-high precision photometry of exoplanet transits. Proc. SPIE 10563, International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2014, 105631L (17 November 2017).Google Scholar
Chant, C and Goodman, D (2005) Pre-Industrial Cities and Technology. London: Taylor&Francis. doi:10.4324/9780203984376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charbonneau, D, Brown, TM, Noyes, RW and Gilliland, RL (2002) Detection of an extrasolar planet atmosphere. The Astrophysical Journal 568, 377–384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clapp, BW (2014) Environmental History of Britain Since the Industrial Revolution, An. London: Taylor&Francis. doi:10.4324/9781315843827.Google Scholar
Clark, G (1947) X. Forest clearance and prehistoric farming. The Economic History Review a17, 45–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clement, RM and Horn, SP (2001) Pre-Columbian land-use history in Costa Rica: a 3000-year record of forest clearance, agriculture and fires from Laguna Zoncho. The Holocene 11, 419–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conn, JE, Segura, MNO, Wilkerson, RC, Schlichting, CD, Póvoa, MM, Wirtz, RA and de Souza, RTL (2002) Emergence of a new neotropical malaria vector facilitated by human migration and changes in land use. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 66, 18–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crowe, MJ (1986) The Extraterrestrial Life Debate 1750-1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0486406756.Google Scholar
Davin, EL, Seneviratne, SI, Ciais, P, Olioso, A and Wang, T (2014) Preferential cooling of hot extremes from cropland albedo management. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, 9757–9761.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
DeHaven, JC (1958) A commentary on fire research. In Methods of Studying Mass Fires: Second Fire Research Correlation Conference. Washington, D.C.: National Academics, pp. 10.Google Scholar
Dodson, J, Li, X, Sun, N, Atahan, P, Zhou, X, Liu, H, … Yang, Z (2014) Use of coal in the Bronze Age in China. The Holocene 24, 525–530.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doolittle, WE (2014) Canal Irrigation in Prehistoric Mexico: The Sequence of Technological Change. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Dragomir, D, Teske, J, Günther, MN, Ségransan, D, Burt, JA, Huang, CX, … Stassun, KG (2019) TESS Delivers its first earth-sized planet and a warm Sub-Neptune. The Astrophysical Journal 875, L7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duncan, RP, Blackburn, TM and Worthy, TH (2002) Prehistoric bird extinctions and human hunting. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences 269, 517–521.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fields, DE, Cole, LL, Summers, S, Yalcintas, MG and Vaughan, GL (1989) Generation of aerosols by an urban fire storm. Aerosol Science and Technology 10, 28–36.Google Scholar
Flannery, T (2005) The Weather Maker: How Man is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth. New York: Groove Press, ISBN 978–0802142924.Google Scholar
Forward, R (1980) Dragon's Egg, Ballantine, ISBN 0345286464 9780345286468Google Scholar
Fossati, L, Rossi, L, Stam, D, Muñoz, AG, Berzosa-Molina, J, Marcos-Arenal, P … Godolt, M (2019) Ultraviolet Spectropolarimetry as a Tool for Understanding the Diversity of Exoplanetary Atmospheres. arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.05834.Google Scholar
Fujii, Y, Angerhausen, D, Deitrick, R, Domagal-Goldman, S, Grenfell, JL, Hori, Y, Kane, SR, Pallé, E, Rauer, H, Siegler, N, Stapelfeldt, K and Stevenson, KB (2018) Exoplanet biosignatures: observational prospects. Astrobiology 18, 739–778.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gibson, CWD and Brown, VK (1991) The effects of grazing on local colonisation and extinction during early succession. Journal of Vegetation Science 2, 291–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, CWD and Brown, VK (1991) The nature and rate of development of calcareous grassland in Southern Britain. Biological Conservation 58(3), 297–316. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0006-3207(91)90097-S.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillespie, R (2008) Updating Martin's Global extinction model. Quaternary Science Reviews 27, 2522–2529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gupta, P (2015) Adverse impacts of changing climatic conditions on the environment due to increasing pollution. International Journal of Life Sciences, 3, pp. 403–408. ISSN: 2320-7817| eISSN: 2320-964XGoogle Scholar
Henderson, CB and Stassun, KG (2012) Time-series photometry of stars in and around the lagoon Nebula. I. Rotation periods of 290 low-mass pre-main-sequence stars in NGC 6530. The Astrophysical Journal 747, 51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johansson, LJ, Hall, K, Prentice, HC, Ihse, M, Reitalu, T, Sykes, MT and Kindström, M (2008) Semi-natural grassland continuity, long-term land-use change and plant species richness in an agricultural landscape on Öland, Sweden. Landscape and Urban Planning 84, 200–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, CN (2005) What can the data on late survival of Australian megafauna tell us about the cause of their extinction?. Quaternary Science Reviews 24, 2167–2172, ISSN 0277-3791.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, AW and Earle, TK (2000) The Evolution of Human Societies: From Foraging Group to Agrarian State. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804764513Google Scholar
Jørgensen, BB and Richardson, K (Eds.) (1996) Eutrophication in coastal marine ecosystems. Coastal and Estuarine Studies 52. 10.1029/ce052.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kasting, JF, Whitmire, DP and Reynolds, RT (1993) Habitable zones around main sequence stars. Icarus 101, 108–128.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kerr, JT and Ostrovsky, M (2003) From space to species: ecological applications for remote sensing. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 18, 299–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, A (2015) Mississippian Period: Overview, New Georgia Encyclopedia, 10 March 2002, edited 06 August 2017. Web. 23 August 2020.Google Scholar
Konopacky, Q, Barman, T, Macintosh, B, Marois, C and Savransky, D (2015) High-resolution Spectroscopy of Directly-Imaged Exoplanet Atmospheres. SPIE Newsroom. doi:10.1117/2.1201408.005546. 8 August 2015.Google Scholar
Kreidberg, L (2018) Exoplanet atmosphere measurements from transmission spectroscopy and other planet star combined light observations. In Deeg, H and Belmonte, J (eds). Handbook of Exoplanets. Cham: Springer. doi:2083–2105. 10.1007/978-3-319-55333-7_100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lambin, EF, Turner, BL, Geist, HJ., Agbola, SB, Angelsen, A, Bruce, JW., Coomes, OT, Dirzo, R, Fischer, G, Folke, C, George, PS, Homewood, K, Imbernon, J, Leemans, R, Li, X, Moran, EF., Mortimore, M, Ramakrishnan, PS, Richards, JF, Skånes, H, Steffen, W, Stone, GD, Svedin, U, Veldkamp, TA, Vogel, C and Xu, J (2001) The causes of land-use and land-cover change: moving beyond the myths. Global Environmental Change 11(4), 261–269. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0959-3780(01)00007-3.Google Scholar
Lattanzi, MG, Casertano, S, Jancart, S, Morbidelli, R, Pourbaix, D, Pannunzio, R, Sozzetti, A and Spagna, A (2005) Detection and characterization of extra-solar planets with gaia. In Turon, C and O'Flaherty, KS (eds). The Three-Dimensional Universe with Gaia. Vol. 576, p. Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A), pp. 251.Google Scholar
Leger, A and Herbst, T (2007) DARWIN mission proposal to ESA. arXiv preprint arXiv:0707.3385.Google Scholar
Little, LK (2007) Life and afterlife of the first plague pandemic. Plague and the End of Antiquity 1, 3–32. 10.1017/cbo9780511812934.004.Google Scholar
Lobell, DB, Asner, GP, Ortiz-Monasterio, JI and Benning, TL (2003) Remote sensing of regional crop production in the Yaqui Valley, Mexico: estimates and uncertainties. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 94, 205–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loeb, A and Turner, EL (2012) Detection technique for artificially illuminated objects in the outer solar system and beyond. Astrobiology 12, 290–294.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Low Tech (2011) “Medieval Smokestacks: Fossil Fuels In Pre-Industrial Times”. LOW-TECH MAGAZINE. N.p., 2016. Web. 14 Aug. 2016. Available at https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/09/peat-and-coal-fossil-fuels-in-pre-industrial-times.htmlGoogle Scholar
Marshall, M (2020) Earliest use of controlled fire. New Scientist 248, 14.Google Scholar
Menotti, F (2012) Wetland Occupations in Prehistoric Europe. New York: Oxford Handbooks Online. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199573493.013.0003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merlis, TM and Schneider, T (2010) Atmospheric dynamics of earth-like tidally locked aquaplanets. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems 2(4). DOI: 10.3894/james.2010.2.13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mohler, M, Bühl, J, Doherty, S, Eggl, S, Eybl, VT, Farago, F, … Tió, MV (2010) Opening a new window to other worlds with spectropolarimetry. Experimental Astronomy 28, 101–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orosz, JA, Welsh, WF, Carter, JA, Fabrycky, DC, Cochran, WD, Endl, M, … Borucki, WJ (2012) Kepler-47: a transiting circumbinary multiplanet system. Science (New York, N.Y.) 337, 1511–1514.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Penny, A (2011) The lifetimes of scientific civilization and The genetic evolution of the brain. In Vakoch, DA and Harrison, AA (eds), Civilizations Beyond Earth: Extra-Terrestrial Life and Society. New York: Berghahn Books, p. 60, 2011. ISBN 13: 9780857452115Google Scholar
Pielke, RA, Marland, G, Betts, RA, Chase, TN, Eastman, JL, Niles, JO, … Running, SW (2002) The influence of land-use change and landscape dynamics on the climate system: relevance to climate-change policy beyond the radiative effect of greenhouse gases. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 360, 1705–1719.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pirani, S (2018) Burning Up: A Global History of Fossil Fuel Consumption. London: Pluto Press, ISBN 978–0745335612.Google Scholar
Platt, T, White, GN, Zhai, L, Sathyendranath, S and Roy, S (2009) The phenology of phytoplankton blooms: ecosystem indicators from remote sensing. Ecological Modelling 220, 3057–3069.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabe, NJ (2003) Remote sensing of crop biophysical parameters for site-specific agriculture, Doctoral dissertation, Lethbridge, Alta.: University of Lethbridge, Faculty of Arts and Science. Corpus ID: 129877980Google Scholar
Rajpaul, V, Buchhave, LA and Aigrain, S (2017) Pinning down the mass of Kepler-10c: the importance of sampling and model comparison. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters 471, L125–L130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reidsma, P, Tekelenburg, T, van den Berg, M and Alkemade, R (2006) Impacts of land-use change on biodiversity: An assessment of agricultural biodiversity in the European Union. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 114(1), 86–102. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2005.11.026.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ripple, WJ, Smith, P, Haberl, H, Montzka, SA, McAlpine, C and Boucher, DH (2013) Ruminants, climate change and climate policy. Nature Climate Change 4, 2–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, (1968) Pavane. Driffield, UK: Rupert Hart-Davis.Google Scholar
Robinson, M, Boardman, J, Evans, R, Heppell, K, Packman, J and Leeks, G (2000) Land use change. In Acreman, M (ed.), The Hydrology of the UK: A Study of Change. London: Routledge, 978–0415187602Google Scholar
Rutherford, PM, Dudas, MJ and Samek, RA (1994) Environmental impacts of phosphogypsum. Science of The Total Environment 149, 1–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryan, KC, Knapp, EE and Varner, JM (2013) Prescribed fire in North American forests and woodlands: history, current practice, and challenges. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 11(S1). DOI: 10.1890/120329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandor, RL, Bettelheim, EC and Swingland, IR (2002) An overview of a free–market approach to climate change and conservation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 360, 1607–1620.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scharf, C (2019) The First Alien. Scientific American blogs, Available at https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/the-first-alien/Google Scholar
Segura, A, Krelove, K, Kasting, JF, Sommerlatt, D, Meadows, V, Crisp, D, … Mlawer, E (2003) Ozone concentrations and ultraviolet fluxes on earth-like planets around other stars. Astrobiology 3, 689–708.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Segura, A, Kasting, JF, Meadows, V, Cohen, M, Scalo, J, Crisp, D, … Tinetti, G (2005) Biosignatures from earth-like planets around M dwarfs. Astrobiology 5, 706–725.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Seneviratne, SI, Phipps, SJ, Pitman, AJ, Hirsch, AL, Davin, EL, Donat, MG, Hirschi, M, Lenton, A, Wilhelm, M and Kravitz, B (2018) Land radiative management as contributor to regional-scale climate adaptation and mitigation. Nature Geosci 11, 88–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Serrano, LM, Barros, SCC, Oshagh, M, Santos, NC, Faria, JP, Demangeon, P, Sousa, SG and Lendl, M (2018) Distinguishing the albedo of exoplanets from stellar activity. A&A 611, A8.Google Scholar
Smith, R, Adams, M, Maier, S, Craig, R, Kristina, A and Maling, I (2007) Estimating the area of stubble burning from the number of active fires detected by satellite. Remote Sensing of Environment 109, 95–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sterzik, M, Bagnulo, S and Palle, E (2012) Biosignatures as revealed by spectropolarimetry of earthshine. Nature 483, 64–66.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tarter, JC, Backus, PR, Mancinelli, RL, Aurnou, JM, Backman, DE, Basri, GS, … Young, RE (2007) A reappraisal of The habitability of planets around M dwarf stars. Astrobiology 7, 30–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Taylor, MS (2011) Buffalo hunt: international trade and the virtual extinction of the North American bison. American Economic Review 101, 3162–3195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van, TT, Wilson, N, Thanh-Tung, H, Quisthoudt, K, Quang-Minh, V, Xuan-Tuan, L, … Koedam, N (2015) Changes in mangrove vegetation area and character in a war and land use change affected region of Vietnam (Mui Ca Mau) over six decades. Acta Oecologica 63, 71–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanderburg, Andrew, Rappaport, Saul A, Xu, Siyi, Ian, J M, Crossfield, Juliette C, Becker, Bruce, Gary, Felipe, Murgas, Simon, Blouin, Thomas G, Kaye, Enric, Palle, Carl, Melis, Brett M, Morris, Laura, Kreidberg, Varoujan, Gorjian, Caroline V, Morley, Andrew W, Mann, Hannu, Parviainen, Logan A, Pearce, Elisabeth R, Newton, Andreia, Carrillo, Ben, Zuckerman, Lorne, Nelson, Greg, Zeimann, Warren R, Brown, René, Tronsgaard, Beth, Klein, George R, Ricker, Roland K, Vanderspek, David W, Latham, Sara, Seager, Joshua N, Winn, Jon M, Jenkins, Fred C, Adams, Björn, Benneke, David, Berardo, Lars A, Buchhave, Douglas A, Caldwell, Jessie L, Christiansen, Karen A, Collins, Knicole D, Colón, Tansu, Daylan, John, Doty, Alexandra E, Doyle, Diana, Dragomir, Courtney, Dressing, Patrick, Dufour, Akihiko, Fukui, Ana, Glidden, Natalia M, Guerrero, Xueying, Guo, Kevin, Heng, Andreea I, Henriksen, Chelsea X, Huang, Lisa, Kaltenegger, Stephen R, Kane, John A, Lewis, Jack J and Lissauer, Farisa. Nature 585, 363–367.Google Scholar
Villaver, E and Livio, M (2009) The orbital evolution of gas giant planets around giant stars. The Astrophysical Journal Letters 705, L81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Z, Schaaf, CB, Kim, J, Erb, AM, Román, MO, Yang, Y, Taylor, JR, Masek, JG, Morisette, JT, Zhang, X and Shirley, A (2017) Monitoring land surface albedo and vegetation dynamics using high spatial and temporal resolution synthetic time series from Landsat and the MODIS BRDF/NBAR/albedo product. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation Year 59, 104–117.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, FA (1982) Urban and wildland fire phenomenology. Progress in Energy and Combustion Science 8, 317–354.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhu, Z, Piao, S, Myneni, R, et al. (2016) Greening of the earth and its drivers. Nature Clim Change 6, 791–795.CrossRefGoogle Scholar