Search for signs of Intelligent ET's in the Solar System

[Ivan Tuzikov]

How would Modern Science disprove the possibility of autonomous ET's colony hidden under surface inside some celestial body of the Solar System?

Can such hypothetical undersurface base sustain a colony with population of say, 5 thousand beings (as a model one can use humans because of known biology) for, say 2000 years and remain undetected until now?

 

I've Googled some info about technosignatures, biosignatures and waste heat production but I' don't have enough data and enough knowledge in biology, physics and industrial processes as to reject such hypothesis or accept it.

 

Thanks in advance to everybody for your attention and time!

[ajb]

How would Modern Science disprove the possibility of autonomous ET's colony hidden under surface inside some celestial body of the Solar System?

Unless one were to look at all the bodies very carefully, examining all locations at exactly the same time, we cannot disprove the possibility. A similar question: how can we use science to 100% disprove the statement that there is at least one unicorn alive today on the Earth?

 

 

What we can say for sure is that to date no evidence for the existence of such a colony in the Solar System has been found. Thus, without any evidence we are just making wild speculations. However, the possibility of such a colony existing or existing in the future cannot be said to be zero. That is just not how science works.

[Ivan Tuzikov]

What we can say for sure is that to date no evidence for the existence of such a colony in the Solar System has been found.

You 've got it! I actually meant evidences, not absolute 101% disproval. I know, the Science can't prove absence with 100% certainty. But what would be probable evident signs of such hypothetical colony that can be measured with current science instruments?

Edited February 17, 2016 by Ivan Tuzikov

[TakenItSeriously]

This comes down to the misunderstanding of what was once a law (medieval times) in classical logic stating that you can't prove a negative which isn't true.

 

What many believe this statement is supposed to mean and which is true: You can't prove non-existence. For example you can't prove the non-existence of unicorns, Santa Clause, God, or a aliens. I believe this was the point that ajb was making.

 

For the kind of life we understand which is limited to life that evolved on Earth, the standard method is to prove absence of liquid water.

 

Since liquid water can only exist at a certain region of a phase diagram, you only need to eliminate the possibility of temperature and pressure being able to reach this state, such as being too far from the sun.

 

Of course there are still things that we may overlook such as when gravitational tides heat the inside of a moon in an elliptical orbit.

 

Edit to add:

After re-reading your OP, I should mention that this only precludes the existence of life that requires liquid water in order to evolve. It doesn't say anything about colonies of life that evolved elsewhere. Which was ajb's second point.

 

In fact we are already thinking seriously about how to create inhabitable environments on off planet bodies within our solar system such as Mars, moons, or asteroids, and underground bases are the most likely scenario since it requires the least amount of materials to bring with you and just sealing off the entrances of underground caves and pumping it full of air may be more feasible.

Edited February 17, 2016 by TakenItSeriously

[Moontanman]

How would Modern Science disprove the possibility of autonomous ET's colony hidden under surface inside some celestial body of the Solar System?

Can such hypothetical undersurface base sustain a colony with population of say, 5 thousand beings (as a model one can use humans because of known biology) for, say 2000 years and remain undetected until now?

 

I've Googled some info about technosignatures, biosignatures and waste heat production but I' don't have enough data and enough knowledge in biology, physics and industrial processes as to reject such hypothesis or accept it.

 

Thanks in advance to everybody for your attention and time!

 

I would think that waste heat would be the easiest way to detect aliens close by. If could detect neutrinos with precision a nuclear reactor gives off lot of them, I would assume aliens would use nuclear power, unless the use it with much more efficacy there would be a lot of waste heat to radiate away...

[Endy0816]

Submerged base could work. No reason to believe there are any though.

[Ophiolite]

An alien colony would be revealed by an anomaly in one or other variable. The trick would be to include aliens as a possible explanation for any observed anomalies. Care should be taken to avoid misapplying Occam's razor. With no known alien civilisations an "alien explanation" appears, superficially, as an unnecessary complication. If alien civilisations were known to exist considering them as an explanation is no longer a complication.

[Ivan Tuzikov]

An alien colony would be revealed by an anomaly in one or other variable.

I didn't quite get: which anomaly can reveal inhabited submerged base in the Solar system?

 

I would think that waste heat would be the easiest way to detect aliens close by. If could detect neutrinos with precision a nuclear reactor gives off lot of them, I would assume aliens would use nuclear power, unless the use it with much more efficacy there would be a lot of waste heat to radiate away...

You suppose that there are instruments that can detect operating hidden nuclear reactor in the Solar system? Wouldn't neutrinos from other stars, Terran reactors and the Sun mask the flux of neutrinos from ET's reactor?

Besides, ET's can obtain thermal energy from the core of a celestial body using thermal wells.

[swansont]

 

I would think that waste heat would be the easiest way to detect aliens close by. If could detect neutrinos with precision a nuclear reactor gives off lot of them, I would assume aliens would use nuclear power, unless the use it with much more efficacy there would be a lot of waste heat to radiate away...

 

How much waste heat, and how easy would it be to detect?

 

In the US, per capita energy use is about 10 kW. (several times higher than the world average). https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=85&t=1

(313 Million Btu is tad more than 313 billion joules, and about 3.15 x 10^7 sec in a year)

For 5k people, as per the OP, that's 50 MW. Maybe you need more. 100 MW. All that eventually gets lost as heat ("waste" or not). In just a 10 km x 10 km square, that's a MW per square km, or a watt per square meter. On earth, incoming solar is more than a kW per square meter, which eventually gets radiated out. Even a 3 AU, it's more than 100 W per square meter. You have a 1% bump in the output, assuming there's no diffusion outside the 10 km square.

 

No, I don't think that waste heat is going to get you anywhere.

[Moontanman]

 

How much waste heat, and how easy would it be to detect?

 

In the US, per capita energy use is about 10 kW. (several times higher than the world average). https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=85&t=1

(313 Million Btu is tad more than 313 billion joules, and about 3.15 x 10^7 sec in a year)

For 5k people, as per the OP, that's 50 MW. Maybe you need more. 100 MW. All that eventually gets lost as heat ("waste" or not). In just a 10 km x 10 km square, that's a MW per square km, or a watt per square meter. On earth, incoming solar is more than a kW per square meter, which eventually gets radiated out. Even a 3 AU, it's more than 100 W per square meter. You have a 1% bump in the output, assuming there's no diffusion outside the 10 km square.

 

No, I don't think that waste heat is going to get you anywhere.

 

 

I am thinking of looking at various small bodies and look for anomalous heat signatures traveling in the outer solar system. The infrared of things like cooling fins or radiators would show up hotter than surrounding objects or space. At least that is what I asserting, on the earth such heat signatures would be lost in the over all high temps of the earths but should show up in space or on cold objects like asteroids.

[swansont]

I am thinking of looking at various small bodies and look for anomalous heat signatures traveling in the outer solar system. The infrared of things like cooling fins or radiators would show up hotter than surrounding objects or space. At least that is what I asserting, on the earth such heat signatures would be lost in the over all high temps of the earths but should show up in space or on cold objects like asteroids.

 

I was following the OP, since that's what we're supposed to be discussing.

[Moontanman]

I was following the OP, since that's what we're supposed to be discussing.

 

 

So am I, where did i deviate from the OP?

[TakenItSeriously]

How would Modern Science disprove the possibility of autonomous ET's colony hidden under surface inside some celestial body of the Solar System?

Can such hypothetical undersurface base sustain a colony with population of say, 5 thousand beings (as a model one can use humans because of known biology) for, say 2000 years and remain undetected until now?

 

I've Googled some info about technosignatures, biosignatures and waste heat production but I' don't have enough data and enough knowledge in biology, physics and industrial processes as to reject such hypothesis or accept it.

 

Thanks in advance to everybody for your attention and time!

I think you need to rephrase this to change "disprove" to something like "what method creates the best odds for finding finding them"

 

Even so, given your parameters of a fixed population of 5,000 and 2,000 years. It seems like they would need to have developed a closed echo system eliminating any waste detection methods.

 

If they use technology similar to ours and aren't actively trying to avoid detection, I'd say scanning for radio signals are your best chance. But if you eliminate radio since SETI hasn't detected them, you might try scanning for EMI sources.

 

Also they would need a completely renewable source of power so If the moon or other body has no thermal activity, then you could look for solar or wind power sources, though wind turbines could still be hidden.

 

If they are actively hiding and sacrifice any technology they could be virtually undetectable. Seismic detection might work though that's a hell of a lot of area to cover.

 

If they could find a way to survive in a gas giant... I'd say you had no chance.

 

If you had the resources, you could try countless numbers of nano bots.

Edited February 19, 2016 by TakenItSeriously

[swansont]

So am I, where did i deviate from the OP?

Since it's a colony inside of an object, it can't be free space, and it has to be big enough to house the colony. But mostly I'm thinking more of "where is your analysis, rather than assertion". How much of a temperature rise will you see?

[Ophiolite]

I didn't quite get: which anomaly can reveal inhabited submerged base in the Solar system?

I wasn't responding to the specific post suggesting a submerged base, but rather making the general observation of "Identify anomalies: consider ET as one of the epxlanations".

[Moontanman]

Since it's a colony inside of an object, it can't be free space, and it has to be big enough to house the colony. But mostly I'm thinking more of "where is your analysis, rather than assertion". How much of a temperature rise will you see?

 

 

Lot of "depends" on that, the size of the object, the power output, efficiency of the power plant, how it is being used and if it is deliberately being hidden in some manner, distance would have to be a factor as well. I do know that we can detect the infrared signature of asteroids.

 

Hidden in a body, lets take for instance an asteroid, I would "think" the waste heat radiators would have to be on the surface of the asteroid. Possibly they could radiate waste heat into an icy body but it still might be detectable due to melting ice sublimation causing an out gassing on a body too small to have a liquid interior..

 

I don't think we currently have the technology to detect neutrinos well enough to use the neutrino out put of a nuclear reactor at a large distance..

[swansont]

 

 

Lot of "depends" on that, the size of the object, the power output, efficiency of the power plant, how it is being used and if it is deliberately being hidden in some manner, distance would have to be a factor as well. I do know that we can detect the infrared signature of asteroids.

 

Hidden in a body, lets take for instance an asteroid, I would "think" the waste heat radiators would have to be on the surface of the asteroid. Possibly they could radiate waste heat into an icy body but it still might be detectable due to melting ice sublimation causing an out gassing on a body too small to have a liquid interior..

 

 

So, IOW, no analysis at all.

Let's say we had a body that was 10 km in radius. Probably needs to be bigger, realistically, to support a civilization, but can't be much smaller and have a structurally sound celestial body for the colony. We have 100 MW, as above, and, as before, assume this is all eventually going to end up as waste heat. The surface of the body has an area of about 1200 km^2, or 1.2 x 10^9 m^2. You would need to radiate an average of 100 mW/m^2 more to dissipate this energy. In deep space, if you were in thermal equilibrium with the CMB, you could see this — the body would have a temperature of about 20K (assuming an emissivity of 1)

 

But, as per the OP, in some proximity to the sun (or in an orbit which gave it tidal warming) such a body with an average temperature of exactly 100K (colder than Ceres, a smidgen warmer than Europa) would only see its temperature rise to 100.04K. The energy radiated varies with T^4. You would not need any radiator fins. This isn't a huge amount of power in this context.

[Moontanman]

 

So, IOW, no analysis at all.

Let's say we had a body that was 10 km in radius. Probably needs to be bigger, realistically, to support a civilization, but can't be much smaller and have a structurally sound celestial body for the colony. We have 100 MW, as above, and, as before, assume this is all eventually going to end up as waste heat. The surface of the body has an area of about 1200 km^2, or 1.2 x 10^9 m^2. You would need to radiate an average of 100 mW/m^2 more to dissipate this energy. In deep space, if you were in thermal equilibrium with the CMB, you could see this — the body would have a temperature of about 20K (assuming an emissivity of 1)

 

But, as per the OP, in some proximity to the sun (or in an orbit which gave it tidal warming) such a body with an average temperature of exactly 100K (colder than Ceres, a smidgen warmer than Europa) would only see its temperature rise to 100.04K. The energy radiated varies with T^4. You would not need any radiator fins. This isn't a huge amount of power in this context.

 

 

Are you assuming the entire surface area of the body would be used to dissipate heat? That seems unlikely, our own power plants use a small surface area to dissipate heat, radiators would be definition be a small part of the object. Heat dissipation should stand out as almost a pinpoint source compared to an object 10 km in radius.

 

Like a 1000 watt lamp inside a large structure the energy is not spread out over the entire structure but appears as an intense source associated with the structure..

 

Compare this to a nuclear power pant, it might provide energy over thousands of square km but the waste heat is dissipated near the source..

Edited February 19, 2016 by Moontanman

[swansont]

Are you assuming the entire surface area of the body would be used to dissipate heat?

 

How are you going to prevent it? It might be more localized, relatively speaking, for a larger body, but then you have proportionally more area over which it will dissipate.

 

That seems unlikely, our own power plants use a small surface area to dissipate heat, radiators would be definition be a small part of the object. Heat dissipation should stand out as almost a pinpoint source compared to an object 10 km in radius.

Our reactors are not buried inside of the planet. Not really a comparable situation.

 

Like a 1000 watt lamp inside a large structure the energy is not spread out over the entire structure but appears as an intense source associated with the structure..

 

Citation? Analysis?

 

Compare this to a nuclear power pant, it might provide energy over thousands of square km but the waste heat is dissipated near the source..

If it provides energy over thousands of square km, that energy is not going to go back to the source to show up as heat. That energy is going to show up where it's used.

[Moontanman]

 

How are you going to prevent it? It might be more localized, relatively speaking, for a larger body, but then you have proportionally more area over which it will dissipate.

 

Our reactors are not buried inside of the planet. Not really a comparable situation.

 

 

Citation? Analysis?

 

If it provides energy over thousands of square km, that energy is not going to go back to the source to show up as heat. That energy is going to show up where it's used.

 

 

Our reactors use heat dissipation to get rid of waste heat, this is not the waste heat of power lines and such. I live near a nuclear power plant, it's heat waste is dumped locally.

 

A reactor buried inside an asteroid would have to dissipate the heat someplace other than inside the asteroid, probably radiators on the surface. Getting rid of waste heat would be difficult inside a solid object, heat transfer would be slow, you need to radiate that heat away fast.

 

I've seen many infrared photos of houses with grow lights inside them, the heat signature is localized not spread out over the entire surface of the house..

 

And icy body may be a different deal, I am not sure how easy to would be to run radiator pipes through the ice, easier than a rocky body I would think and the melted ices could be used to absorb heat as well, circulating melted ices would be easier...

[Airbrush]

If ETs are here somewhere in our solar system, they are very aware of us and would find us very interesting. And since they have technology far beyond ours and nothing to be gained by us knowing about them, they can remain as undetectable to us as we are undetectable to a mound of termites. They could have been there for a long time and could know more about us than we know about ourselves.

 

Unlikely SETI will ever detect ET signals, because ETs would certainly be aware of the possibility other ETs could find them, and they would not want to be located. We are at a stage in technology were we are accidentally announcing our location in the galaxy. It won't be long before we realize we should mask our broadcasts so a predator alien species won't find us and come and take our planet away from us. ETs probably evolved from intelligent predators, such as ourselves.

Edited February 23, 2016 by Airbrush

[Moontanman]

If ETs are here somewhere in our solar system, they are very aware of us and would find us very interesting. And since they have technology far beyond ours and nothing to be gained by us knowing about them, they can remain as undetectable to us as we are undetectable to a mound of termites. They could have been there for a long time and could know more about us than we know about ourselves.

 

Unlikely SETI will ever detect ET signals, because ETs would certainly be aware of the possibility other ETs could find them, and they would not want to be located. We are at a stage in technology were we are accidentally announcing our location in the galaxy. It won't be long before we realize we should mask our broadcasts so a predator alien species won't find us and come and take our planet away from us. ETs probably evolved from intelligent predators, such as ourselves.

 

Airbrush, you are making quite a few assertions about the nature of ET, do you have anything but your own assertions that back this up?

[Airbrush]

 

Airbrush, you are making quite a few assertions about the nature of ET, do you have anything but your own assertions that back this up?

 

Just using logic and the best reasoning I am capable. Feel free to contradict my reasoning, I'd really like to know how you dissent. Do you really think ETs that are so far beyond us technologically that they can travel interstellar distances, that they would not take sophisticated measures at stealth? If the UFOs we see photos of are real, with the colorful lights blinking as if to call attention to them, do you really think they could not use stealth if they wanted to? Obviously they would want us to see them, for some reason beyond our understanding.

Edited February 24, 2016 by Airbrush

[Ophiolite]

 

Just using logic and the best reasoning I am capable. Feel free to contradict my reasoning,

Certainly. You have not used logic, but have rather made unsubstantiated and unsupported assumptions that lead naturally to erroneous conclusions. What are these erroneous assumptions?

1. I can imagine at least three scenarios in which ETs in the system are not aware of us, or if aware of us have no interest in us.

2. Interstellar travel does not necessarily require technology far beyond ours.

3. If they are interested in us as you claim, then they would have something to gain by us knowing about them.

4. Having an interstellar capability does not automatically mean you have an equivalent level stealth technology.

5. You have no basis for thinking all ETs would wish to remain hidden.

6. ETs could have evolved from intelligent dandelions and have an great fear of our cows.

 

Each of your assumptions may well be correct. It may equally well be wrong. Forming conclusions from such an ill founded base is silly.

[Airbrush]

Certainly. You have not used logic, but have rather made unsubstantiated and unsupported assumptions that lead naturally to erroneous conclusions. What are these erroneous assumptions?

1. I can imagine at least three scenarios in which ETs in the system are not aware of us, or if aware of us have no interest in us.

2. Interstellar travel does not necessarily require technology far beyond ours.

3. If they are interested in us as you claim, then they would have something to gain by us knowing about them.

4. Having an interstellar capability does not automatically mean you have an equivalent level stealth technology.

5. You have no basis for thinking all ETs would wish to remain hidden.

6. ETs could have evolved from intelligent dandelions and have an great fear of our cows.

 

Each of your assumptions may well be correct. It may equally well be wrong. Forming conclusions from such an ill founded base is silly.

 

Thanks for making your points.

 

The idea that ETs could be in our solar system and not be aware of us is absurd. Planets like Earth are rare gems, they could not help but notice. And soon they would detect industrial chemicals in our atmosphere.

 

Interstellar travel is FAR beyond our own stealth technology, sorry I disagree they can do better cloaking than we can.

 

How could they not be interested in another intelligent life form, such a rare thing?

 

I disagree, what would they have to gain by us knowing about them?

 

Predation is the natural order. The strong or techno-advanced conquor and subjugate on this planet.

 

There is a case for ETs to have evolved from predators, that I saw in a documentary with reputable scientists, like what happened on Earth. Predation takes more intelligence than mere grazing, or soaking up sun rays.