Could NASA's Kepler planet-hunting space telescope stumble upon E.T.'s attempt at interstellar communication via a giant orbiting billboard?
SETI veteran scientist Jill Tarter pointed me to this imaginative prospect after reading my recent posting about Kepler’s potential to detect rings around extrasolar planets.
Kepler can't directly photograph exoplanets. But the dimming of the parent star they pass in from of (or transit) provides a tell-tale signature of the way the planet is blocking light from the star. When plotting brightness vs. time on a simple graph, a momentary and very small drop in the star's brightness traces a dimple pattern in the stars light curve.
But imagine how startled Kepler scientists would be if the light curve of a transiting body was a crazy set of zigzag lines, like the wiggle on seismic detector strip chart.
At first glance, it would mean the body was not a spherical planet. The more complicated the pattern the more complicated the silhouette of the body would be. Simulations would eventually be used to reconstruct the geometry.
What if the occulting body turned out to be a square, triangle or diamond in shape? After re-observing numerous times and ruling out every possible natural explanation -- and instrument defects -- Kepler astronomers would cautiously suggest it was a humongous artificial construction placed into orbit about the star.
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