SEARCHES FOR LOST STARS AND IMPOSSIBLE EFFECTS AS PROBES OF ADVANCED EXTRATERRESTRIAL CIVILIZATIONS

OUR SKY NOW AND THEN: SEARCHES FOR LOST STARS AND IMPOSSIBLE EFFECTS AS PROBES OF ADVANCED EXTRATERRESTRIAL CIVILIZATIONS

Authors:

Villarroel et al

Abstract:

Searches for extraterrestrial intelligence using large survey data often look for possible signatures of astroengineering. We propose searching for physically impossible effects caused by highly advanced technology by carrying out a search for disappearing galaxies and Milky Way stars. We select ~10 million objects from USNO-B1.0 with low proper motions (μ < 20 mas yr−1) imaged on the sky in two epochs. We search for objects not found at the expected positions in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) by visually examining images of ~290,000 USNO-B1.0 objects with no counterpart in the SDSS. We identify some spurious targets in the USNO-B1.0. We find one candidate of interest for follow-up photometry, although it is very uncertain. If the candidate eventually is found, it defines the probability of observing a disappearing-object event in the last decade to less than one in one million in the given samples. Nevertheless, because the complete USNO-B1.0 data set is 100 times larger than any of our samples, we propose an easily accessible citizen science project in search of USNO-B1.0 objects that have disappeared from the SDSS.