City lights could reveal extraterrestrial civilization Posted
November 4, 2011; 05:20 a.m. Astronomers searching for
extraterrestrial intelligence typically have mined for radio
signals and ultra-short laser pulses, but researchers from
Princeton and Harvard universities now suggest a seemingly more
straightforward method — see who's left the light on. Edwin
Turner, a professor in Princeton's Department of Astrophysical
Sciences, and Avi Loeb, professor and chair of Harvard's
Department of Astronomy, have reported a technique that could
detect alien civilizations by the artificial light that would
emanate from their cities. Turner and Loeb's work, which
presents a mathematical algorithm to detect and observe this
artificial light from Earth, has been submitted to the journal
Astrobiology. "It's very unlikely that there are alien cities on
the edge of our solar system, but the principle of science is to
find a method to check," said Turner, who has focused on
numerous topics in theoretical and observational as