Moon dust may hold traces much older than humans. A new study says technology debris from an extinct alien civilization could be scattered across the solar system, including on the Moon's surface.
The idea came from Oxford astrophysicist Brian Lacki. In a report by The Independent, quoted on Monday, June 22, Lacki argued that humans might find it easier to find the remains of alien technology than to capture a direct signal from a surviving civilization.
The reason is simple. The universe is too vast. The chances of humans living at the same time as advanced aliens are very small. While the traces of technology that have been destroyed can survive much longer, even billions of years.
So far, alien searches have focused heavily on active signals, such as radio waves from outside the solar system. The problem is, humans themselves have only sent radio signals into space for about the last century. In cosmic terms, that's only like a blink of an eye.
Therefore, Lacki proposed a passive search for signs. This means that traces of technology remain even though the creator has long disappeared. He wrote this idea in a paper uploaded to arXiv and has not gone through peer review.
Lacki divides the passive sign of alien technology into three types, namely occulter, glinter, and diffuser.
Occulters are objects in space that block starlight. The effect is similar to an artificial eclipse. If made by an advanced civilization, the pattern of its passage in front of a star can seem unnatural to astronomers on Earth.
Unlike radio signals, the occulter does not need electricity, transmitters, or maintenance. It just moves in orbit and occasionally makes the starlight dim.
A glinter is a giant lens or mirror-like object used to reflect or focus starlight. The principle is similar to a satellite reflecting the Sun's rays, but on a much larger scale.
Diffusers are simpler. These objects spread light in many directions and can produce a typical spectrum pattern. A similar technology has been used by humans on a number of space vehicles, including the Moon's explorers, for retroreflector experiments.
Retroreflectors help reflect light with a certain pattern. Their functions include helping calibrate telescopes on Earth and studying the effects of the atmospheres of other planets or moons.
According to Lacki, remnants of such technology may still be found even if the civilization that created it has disappeared.
One example that astronomers often discuss is the Dyson Sphere. This concept comes from physicist Freeman Dyson. He imagined that an advanced civilization that requires enormous energy would try to harvest energy from its own star.
The way is through a giant solar panel in space or a group of spacecraft orbiting the star to capture its energy.
Finding a Dyson sphere that is still intact is certainly difficult. However, according to Lacki, what may be left is its fragments. He calls it technograins, which are dust grains from destroyed technology.
In the arXiv paper quoted by The Independent, Lacki said technograins can be carried by the Sun's wind, which is a flow of charged particles from the Sun, then move to other star systems. When the solar system crosses the Milky Way Galaxy, the planets and moons in it can sweep away some of the dust.
This is where the Moon becomes interesting. Its surface contains regolith, a layer of dust and rock fragments. If the regolith is carefully filtered, there is a chance that humans will find grains that have unusual characteristics.
Of course this is still a hypothesis. There is no evidence that such alien dust has actually been found.
However, the idea opens up a new way of looking at the search for intelligent life beyond Earth. Maybe the alien trail does not come as a dramatic radio message. It could be just a small dust, sitting on the surface of the Moon, waiting for someone to be patient enough to look for it.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
