I thought you already asked this some time ago. The answer is no, we can improve only slightly on diffraction limiting, there is no chance of imaging the surfaces. We can infer broad characteristics versus longitude by noting variations of total reflected light as the exo-planet rotates but that gives no real data on latitudinal variation.

Who knows (but not directly) : Article Surface Imaging of Proxima b and Other Exoplanets: Topograph...

Thanks Michal, that was the technique I was thinking of.

exo planets are located outside the solar system.

greater advancement in this fieldd is taking place.

Instruments such as telescopes can not able to measure the imaging surface. Today the world is moving towards AI. Needs more advanced instruments.

Albert Einstein once said that: "Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, though I'm not sure about the first."

In my opinion, the question of the infinity of the universe is debatable. Albert Einstein also suggested this in the above statement. If the universe defines many billions of galaxies, constellations, planetary systems, suns, planets, etc., whose creation was initiated billions of years ago from a particular Big Bang, it means that the Universe understood in this way is limited and continues to expand. However, it cannot be ruled out that beyond this known universe there may be something else in the distant emptiness of space that we do not know. And if there is nothing else but an endless void of nothingness, can it be called the unlimited universe?

What is your opinion on this topic?

I am asking for an answer and invite you to a discussion,

Thank you very much and best regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

Those who are interested. You can read about the chances of finding an extraterrestrial civilization in [ https://www.scirp.org/Journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=95549.]

Dear Boris Michailovich Menin, Thank you very much for the link provided to interesting material on this subject. Best wishes, All the best, Stay healthy!

Dariusz Prokopowicz

The cosmic distances between our Solar System and the nearest exoplanets in other constellations are huge. Is it possible, then, that in the 21st century, optical and other technologies, after appropriate improvement, will allow for the construction of fully reliable images of what is on the surface of these closest exoplanets? However, will it be only knowledge about the most probable chemical composition of the atmosphere and the surface of a specific exoplanet based on properly processed images in conjunction with the knowledge of cosmological theories?

Best wishes,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

May be it is interesting:

F. Marin, C. Beluffi (2018) Computing the minimal crew for a multi-generational space travel towards Proxima Centauri b. https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.03856

The survival of a genetically healthy multi-generational crew is of a prime concern when dealing with space travel. It has been shown that determining a realistic population size is tricky as many parameters (such as infertility, inbreeding, sudden deaths, accidents or random events) come into play. To evaluate the impact of those parameters, Monte Carlo simulations are among the best methods since they allow testing of all possible scenarios and determine, by numerous iterations, which are the most likely. This is why we use the Monte Carlo code HERITAGE to estimate the minimal crew for a multi-generational space travel towards Proxima Centauri b. By allowing the crew to evolve under a list of adaptive social engineering principles (namely yearly evaluations of the vessel population, offspring restrictions and breeding constraints), we show in this paper that it is possible to create and maintain a healthy population virtually indefinitely. A initial amount of 25 breeding pairs of settlers drives the mission towards extinction in 50 +/- 15% of cases if we completely forbid inbreeding. Under the set of parameters described in this publication, we find that a minimum crew of 98 people is necessary ensure a 100% success rate for a 6300-year space travel towards the closest telluric exoplanet known so far.

Dear Boris Michailovich Menin,

Thank you for the publication proposal, which addresses the important issues of this issue.

Best wishes,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

If, thanks to technological advances in the field of astronomical research, it will be possible to accurately determine the chemical composition and climatic conditions of distant exoplanets, then it will be possible to more precisely determine the possibility of life or possibly also human colonization of these exoplanets in the future.

Best regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

Planet-forming disks around stars may come preloaded with ingredients for life

Methanol spotted around a hot, young star probably originated in interstellar space, suggesting some chemistry for life may start before stars form.

https://www.sciencenews.org/topic/astronomy

The chemistry leading to life may start before stars are even born.

In the planet-forming disk of gas and dust around a young star, astronomers have detected methanol. The disk is too warm for the methanol to have formed there, so this complex organic molecule probably originated in the interstellar cloud that collapsed to form the star and its disk, researchers report online May 10 in Nature Astronomy. This finding offers evidence that at least some organic matter from interstellar space can seed the disks around newborn stars to provide potential ingredients for life on new planets.

“That’s pretty exciting, because it means that, in principle, all planets forming around any kind of star could have this material,” says Viviana Guzmán, an astrochemist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago not involved in the work.

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Saturn has a fuzzy core, spread over more than half the planet’s diameter

Analysis of a wave in one of Saturn’s rings has revealed that the planet’s core is diffuse and bloated with lots of hydrogen and helium.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/saturn-planet-core-fuzzy-ring-astronomy-space

One of Saturn’s rings has revealed properties of its core, hidden deep beneath the planet’s golden atmosphere.

That core isn’t the lump of rock and ice that many scientists had envisioned, the new study finds. Instead, the core is diffuse, pervaded by huge amounts of hydrogen and helium and so spread out that it spans 70,000 kilometers, or about 60 percent of the planet’s diameter, researchers report April 28 at arXiv.org.

The new intel should help planetary scientists better understand not only how giant planets formed in our solar system but also the nature of such worlds orbiting other stars.

To ascertain the structure of Saturn’s core, astronomer Christopher Mankovich and astrophysicist Jim Fuller, both at Caltech, examined the giant planet’s rings. Just as earthquakes help seismologists probe Earth’s interior, oscillations inside Saturn can reveal its internal composition. These oscillations alter Saturn’s gravitational forces, inducing waves in the rings —especially the C ring, which is the nearest of the three main rings to the planet (SN: 1/22/19).

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By analyzing a wave in that ring, along with data on Saturn’s gravity field from the now-defunct Cassini spacecraft (SN: 9/15/17), Mankovich and Fuller found that the core has about 17 Earth masses of rock and ice. But there’s so much hydrogen and helium mixed in, the core encompasses 55 Earth masses altogether — more than half of Saturn’s total, which is equivalent to the mass of 95 Earths. This “ring seismology” work will appear in a future Nature Astronomy.

“It’s a new way to look at gas giant planets in the solar system,” says Ravit Helled, a planetary scientist at the University of Zurich who was not involved with the work. “This knowledge is important because it reflects on our understanding of giant exoplanets,” and indicates that giant planets in other solar systems probably have more complex structures than many researchers had thought.

The discovery also illuminates how Saturn formed, says Nadine Nettelmann, a planetary scientist at the German Aerospace Center in Berlin.

Older theories posited that a gas giant such as Saturn arises when rock and ice orbiting the sun start to conglomerate. Tenuous gaseous envelopes let additional solid materials sink to the center, forming a compact core. Only later, according to this theory, does the core attract lots of hydrogen and helium — the ingredients that make up most of the planet. Although these elements are gases on Earth, Saturn’s great gravity squeezes most of them into a fluid.

But newer theories say instead that plenty of gas got incorporated into the core of rock and ice when it was taking shape 4.6 billion years ago. As the planet accreted additional mass, the proportion of gas rose. The structure Mankovich and Fuller deduce for Saturn’s core preserves this formation history, Nettelmann says, because the planet’s very center, representing the oldest part of Saturn, has the greatest proportion of rock and ice. The fraction of rock and ice decreases gradually rather than abruptly from the core’s center to its edge, reflecting the core’s development over time.

“I find the conclusions very important and very exciting and the line of reasoning very convincing,” Nettelmann says. Still, she cautions that additional waves in the rings should be analyzed for confirmation.

The type of oscillation that Mankovich and Fuller detect inside Saturn also implies that the core is stable rather than bubbling like a pot of water on a hot stove, which is one way a planet can carry heat from its hot interior outward. The core’s stability may help explain a long-standing puzzle: why Saturn emits more energy than it gets from the sun.

After the planet formed, it was warm with the heat of its birth, but then it cooled off. The core’s stability could have put a lid on some of this cooling, however, which helped the planet retain heat that it still radiates to this day. In contrast, if the core had instead transported heat via the upwelling and downwelling of material, the planet would have cooled off faster and no longer give off so much heat.

Questions or comments on this article? E-mail us at [email protected]

CITATIONS

C.R. Mankovich and J. Fuller. A diffuse core in Saturn revealed by ring seismology. arXiv:2104.13385. Posted April 28, 2021.

About Ken Croswell

Ken Croswell has a Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University and is the author of eight books, including The Alchemy of the Heavens: Searching for Meaning in the Milky Way and The Lives of Stars.

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Dear Boris Menin,

Thanks for the answer to the question: Will the technological development allow us to look at the surface of the nearest exoplanets in the 21st century?

You added new topics to our discussion.

Thank you, Regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

In order for this to be possible, first of all, asteroid mining and space mining issues should be studied. With advanced engineering, spacecraft must catch up with the technology that can produce fuel from space objects.

Dear Senem Çabuk,

Yes, this is an important point. You added an important point to our discussion. The development of space mining technology to obtain fuel for spacecraft would significantly increase the possibilities of space exploration.

Thank you, Best regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

may be

Gravity shackles: why aliens won't be able to go into space

Astronomers are paying close attention to super-Earths - exoplanets whose radius is about 2 times the Earth's, since they could also become the cradle of life in space. The trouble is that gravity, which provides all the conditions for the development of alien life, is also a trap that prevents hypothetical aliens from going into outer space!

Spaceflight from Super-Earths is difficult

Michael Hippke

Article Spaceflight from Super-Earths is difficult

Lakes of liquid water at Mars’ southern ice cap may just be mirages

In 2018, scientists found evidence for water lakes sitting beneath the southern Martian ice cap. New evidence suggests the lakes might not exist.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mars-lakes-liquid-water-south-pole-ice-cap-mirages

Maybe hold off on that Martian ice fishing trip. Two new studies splash cold water on the idea that potentially habitable lakes of liquid water exist deep under the Red Planet’s southern polar ice cap.

The possibility of a lake roughly 20 kilometers across was first raised in 2018, when the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft probed the planet’s southern polar cap with its Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding, or MARSIS, instrument. The orbiter detected bright spots on radar measurements, hinting at a large body of liquid water beneath 1.5 kilometers of solid ice that could be an abode to living organisms (SN: 7/25/18). Subsequent work found hints of additional pools surrounding the main lake basin (SN: 9/28/20).

But the planetary science community has always held some skepticism over the lakes’ existence, which would require some kind of continuous geothermal heating to maintain subglacial conditions (SN: 2/19/19). Below the ice, temperatures average –68° Celsius, far past the freezing point of water, even if the lakes are a brine containing a healthy amount of salt, which lowers water’s freezing point. An underground magma pool would be needed to keep the area liquid — an unlikely scenario given Mars’ lack of present-day volcanism.

“If it’s not liquid water, is there something else that could explain the bright radar reflections we’re seeing?” asks planetary scientist Carver Bierson of Arizona State University in Tempe.

Dear Ali J. Abboud,

Thanks for the answer to the question: Will the technological development allow us to look at the surface of the nearest exoplanets in the 21st century?

Thank you, Regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

Dear Boshra A Arnout,

Thanks for the answer. I'm glad we think the same.

Regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

Dear Sundara Siva Kumar v,

Yes. That's right. So far, the current telescopes do not allow for precise photographing of surfaces in other exoplanet constellations in order to investigate what is on them. It is essential to continue the technological progress in this area.

Thank you, Regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

We are not alone? Scientists have discovered radio signals from "hidden" planets

Scientists have discovered mysterious radio signals that may come from as yet undiscovered exoplanets.

This is reported by Science Alert.

In particular, 19 red dwarfs have been discovered within 160 light-years of the solar system, four of which emit radio signals. According to the analysis, the best explanation for this activity is the presence of "invisible" and orbiting exoplanets around them.

“We have long known that the planets in our solar system emit powerful radio waves because their magnetic fields interact with the solar wind, but radio signals from planets outside our solar system have not yet been detected. This discovery is an important step for radio astronomy and could potentially lead to the discovery planets across the galaxy, "said University of Queensland astrophysicist Benjamin Pope.

According to the study's lead author Joseph Cullingham, the team has pinpointed exactly what signals are coming from the magnetic link between stars and hidden planets.

“I believe that somewhere there is life. I would not do this work if I didn’t think that it has a real perspective,” the scientist noted.

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The Astronomer Who’s About to See the Skies of Other Earths

After the ultra-powerful James Webb Space Telescope launches later this year, Laura Kreidberg will lead two efforts to check the weather on rocky planets orbiting other stars.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/with-a-new-space-telescope-laura-kreidberg-will-probe-exoplanet-skies-20211012/?utm_source=Quanta+Magazine&utm_campaign=8bc189be48-RSS_Daily_Physics&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f0cb61321c-8bc189be48-389723505&mc_cid=8bc189be48&mc_eid=aed3226bfd

We know next to nothing about the other 6 billion or so Earth-like planets in the galaxy. With the imminent launch of the largest, most powerful space telescope ever built, Laura Kreidberg is optimistic this will soon change.

Kreidberg is the 32-year-old founding director of a new department at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, devoted to studying what the weather is like on alien worlds. So far, she and her team have scrutinized the atmospheres around Jupiter-size exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars). When it comes to small, rocky exoplanets that could potentially harbor life, current telescopes lack the resolving power to do much more than tally the number that are out there. But NASA’s $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), set to launch in December after decades of planning and construction, will allow astronomers like Kreidberg to peer into rocky planets’ skies and, she said, “turn these planets into places.”

JWST’s distinguishing feature is a sunshield the size of a tennis court that will protect its instruments and gold-plated mirrors from the heat of the sun and Earth. Shaded in this way, the telescope will be able to detect faint infrared radiation, such as the light coming from exoplanets. Kreidberg is the lead investigator for two programs in JWST’s coveted first round of observations. Her projects seek evidence of atmospheres and volcanic activity around Earth-size worlds.

Kreidberg, who grew up in Reno, Nevada, has been a rising star among exoplanet scientists since completing her doctorate in astronomy at Yale University in 2016. The overarching question motivating her research on exoplanet atmospheres — work for which she won the Annie Jump Cannon Award earlier this year — is whether alien life exists in the cosmos. “The universe feels profoundly lonely,” she said. Discovering aliens “would be comforting, in a strange way.” Scientists suspect that life cannot survive on skyless planets, so investigating atmospheres around rocky planets is a key step toward answering the “Are we alone?” question.

During our conversation, Kreidberg laid out the ingenious methods she’ll use to observe far-off, pinpoint planets orbiting in the blinding glare of their parent stars. Despite her calm and meticulous manner, her excitement about the new telescope bubbled over: “We’ve been waiting for this for so long!” The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Dear Boris Menin,

Thanks for your response on increasing the potential for space exploration with the James Webb Space Telescope. I also believe that thanks to this Telescope there will be answers to many current questions, e.g. regarding the existence of other forms of life in many millions of light years away and in other planetary systems, in other constellations, similar to our planet Earth in exoplanets.

Thank you very much,

Best regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

Webb Fact Sheet:

https://webb.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/assets/documents/WebbFactSheet.pdf

NASA chief: this is a great day for the whole Earth

NASA President Bill Nelson commented on the launch of the largest James Webb telescope.

He made the corresponding statement in the afternoon, December 25.

Nelson thanked the United States government for partners in Europe and Canada. He also expressed his gratitude to the engineers who developed the telescope.

"This is a great day for the entire Earth. We will discover amazing things that we did not even know about. The impossible will become possible," Nelson said.

Dear participants, Dariusz Prokopowicz Anton Vrdoljak Bushra Mahmood Alwan Boshra A Arnout

From the bottom of my heart we congratulate you on a wonderful holiday - New Year!

I sincerely wish you health, joy, good mood, fulfillment of desires and achievement of your goals in 2022!

To Boris Michailovich Menin: Thank you very much for such great wishes! Next, may the passing year take all worries with it, leaving all the best for the new year! I wish you and to over 20 million members from all over the world at RG platform many more achievements and publications, vivid experiences, and success in every undertaking! Happy New Year!

Themselves will be able to vote: Musk on the political system on Mars

SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk has voiced his goals from the colonization of Mars.

In an interview with Lex Friedman, he talked about his plans to send the so-called futuristic "Noah's Ark" to the Red Planet.

"We'll take more than two (each creature has a pair - ed.) - it's a bit strange if there are only two of them," Musk emphasized.

According to the American billionaire, he does not mind building a base on Mars by 2028 and transporting animals and people there.

"People themselves will be able to vote for the necessary laws," Musk said, commenting on the likely political system on the Red Planet.

Happy Astronomy Day, everyone!

Civilizations Don’t Even Need Space Ships to Migrate From Star System to Star System !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In about 5 billion years, the Sun will leave the main sequence and become a red giant. It’ll expand and transform into a glowering, malevolent ball and consume and destroy Mercury, Venus, Earth, and probably Mars. Can humanity survive the Sun’s red giant phase? Extraterrestrial Civilizations (ETCs) may have already faced this existential threat.

Could they have survived it by migrating to another star system without the use of spaceships?

Universe Today readers are well-versed in the difficulties of interstellar travel. Our nearest neighbouring solar system is the Alpha Centauri system. If humanity had to flee an existential threat in our Solar System, and if we could identify a planetary home in Alpha Centauri, it would still take us over four years to get there—if we could travel at the speed of light!

It still takes us five years to get an orbiter to Jupiter at our technological stage. There’s lots of talk about generation starships, where humans could live for generations while en route to a distant habitable planet. Those ships don’t need to reach anywhere near the speed of light; instead, entire generations of humans would live and die on a journey to another star that takes hundreds or thousands of years. It’s fun to think about but pure fantasy at this point.

Is there another way we, or other civilizations, could escape our doomed homes?

The author of a new research article in the International Journal of Astrobiology says that ETCs may not need starships to escape existential threats and travel to another star system. They could instead use free-floating planets, also known as rogue planets. The article is “Migrating extraterrestrial civilizations and interstellar colonization: implications for SETI and SETA.” The author is Irina Romanovskaya. Romanovskaya is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Houston Community College.

“I propose that extraterrestrial civilizations may use free-floating planets as interstellar transportation to reach, explore and colonize planetary systems,” Romanovskaya writes. And when it comes to the search for other civilizations, these efforts could leave technosignatures and artifacts. “I propose possible technosignatures and artifacts that may be produced by extraterrestrial civilizations using free-floating planets for interstellar migration and interstellar colonization, as well as strategies for the search for their technosignatures and artifacts,” she said.

It’s possible that rogue planets, either in the Milky Way or some of the other hundreds of billions of galaxies, carry their own life with them in subsurface oceans kept warm by radiogenic decay. Then if they meet a star and become gravitationally bound, that life has effectively used a rogue planet to transport itself, hopefully, to somewhere more hospitable. So why couldn’t a civilization mimic that?

We think of free-floating planets as dark, cold, and inhospitable. And they are unless they have warm subsurface oceans. But they also offer some advantages. “Free-floating planets can provide constant surface gravity, large amounts of space and resources,” Romanovskaya writes. “Free-floating planets with surface and subsurface oceans can provide water as a consumable resource and for protection from space radiation.”

An advanced civilization could also engineer the planet for an even greater advantage by steering it and developing energy sources. Romanovskaya suggests that if we’re on the verge of using controlled fusion, then advanced civilizations might already be using it, which could change a frigid rogue planet into something that could support life.

The author outlines four scenarios where ETCs could take advantage of rogue planets.

The first scenario involves a rogue planet that happens to pass by the homeworld of an ETC. How often that might occur is tied to the number of rogue planets in general. So far, we don’t know how many there are, but there are certainly some. In 2021, a team of researchers announced the discovery of between 70 and 170 rogue planets, each the size of Jupiter, in one region of the Milky Way. And in 2020, one study suggested there could be as many as 50 billion of them in our galaxy.

Where do they all come from? Most are likely ejected from their solar systems due to gravitational events, but some may form via accretion as stars do.

Another source of rogue planets is our Solar System’s Oort Cloud. If other systems also have a cloud of objects like this, they can be an abundant source of rogue planets ejected by stellar activity. Romanovskaya writes: “Stars with 1–7 times solar mass undergoing the post-main-sequence evolution, as well as a supernova from a 7–20 times solar mass progenitor, can eject Oort-cloud objects from their systems so that such objects become unbound from their host stars.”

But how often can an ETC, or our civilization, expect a rogue planet to come close enough to hitchhike on? A 2015 study showed that the binary star W0720 (Scholz’s star) passed through our Solar System’s Oort Cloud about 70,000 years ago. While that was a star and not a planet, it shows that objects pass relatively close by. If the studies that predict billions of free-floating planets are correct, then some of them likely passed close by, or right through, the Oort Cloud long before we had the means to detect them.

The Oort Cloud is a long way away, but a sufficiently advanced civilization could have the capability to see a rogue planet approaching and go out and meet it.

The second scenario involves using technology to steer a rogue planet closer to a civilization’s home. With sufficient technology, they could choose an object from their own Oort Cloud—assuming they have one—and use a propulsion system to direct it towards a safe orbit near their planet. With sufficient lead time, they could adapt the object to their needs, for example, by building underground shelters and other infrastructure. Maybe, with adequate technology, they could alter or create an atmosphere.

The third scenario is similar to the second one. It also involves an object from the civilization’s outer Solar System. Romanovskaya uses the dwarf planet Sedna in our Solar System as an example. Sedna has a highly eccentric orbit that takes it from 76 AUs from the Sun to 937 AU in about 11,000 years. With sufficient technology and lead time, an object like Sedna could be turned into an escape ship. The author notes that “Civilizations capable of doing so would be advanced civilizations that already have their planetary systems explored to the distances of at least 60 AU from their host stars.”

There are lots of potential problems. Bringing a dwarf planet from the distant reaches of the Solar System into the inner Solar System could disrupt the orbits of other planets, leading to all sorts of hazards. But the dangers are mitigated if a civilization around a post-main sequence star has already migrated outward with the changing habitable zone. Romanovskaya discusses the energy needed and the timing required in more detail in her article.

The fourth scenario also involves objects like Sedna. When a star leaves the main sequence and expands, there’s a critical distance where objects will be ejected from the system rather than remain gravitationally bound to the dying star. If an ETC could accurately determine when these objects would be ejected as rogue planets, they could prepare it beforehand and ride it out of the dying solar system. That could be extraordinarily perilous, as periods of violent mass loss from the star creates an enormous hazard.

In all of these scenarios, the rogue planet or other body isn’t a permanent home; it’s a lifeboat. “For all the above scenarios, free-floating planets may not serve as a permanent means of escape from existential threats,” the author explains. “Because of the waning heat production in their interior, such planets eventually fail to sustain oceans of liquid water (if such oceans exist).”

Free-floating planets are also isolated and have fewer resources than planets in a solar system. There are no asteroids to mine, for example, and no free solar energy. There are no seasons and no night and day. There are no plants, animals, or even bacteria. They’re simply a means to an end. “Therefore, instead of making free-floating planets their permanent homes, extraterrestrial civilizations would use the free-floating planets as interstellar transportation to reach and colonize other planetary systems,” writes Romanovskaya.

In her article, Professor Romanovskaya speculates where this could lead. She envisions a civilization that does this more than once, not to escape a dying star but to spread throughout a galaxy and colonize it. “In this way, the parent-civilization may create unique and autonomous daughter-civilizations inhabiting different planets, moons or regions of space.”

“A civilization of Cosmic Hitchhikers would act as a ‘parent-civilization’ spreading the seeds of ‘daughter-civilizations’ in the form of its colonies in planetary systems,” she writes. “This applies to both biological and post-biological species.”

Humanity is only in the early stages of protecting ourselves from catastrophic asteroid impacts, and we can’t yet manage our planet’s climate with any degree of stability. So thinking about using rogue planets to keep humanity alive seems pretty far-fetched. But Romanovskaya’s research isn’t about us; it’s about detecting other civilizations.

All of this activity could create technosignatures and artifacts that signified the presence of an ETC. The research article outlines what they might be and how we could detect them. Rogue planets used as lifeboats could create technosignatures like electromagnetic emissions or other phenomena.

An ETC could use solar sails to control a rogue planet or use them on a spaceship launched from a rogue planet once they have reached their destination. In either case, solar sails produce a technosignature: cyclotron radiation. Maneuvering either a spacecraft or a rogue planet with solar sails would produce “… cyclotron radiation caused by the interaction of the interstellar medium with the magnetic sail.”

Infrared emissions could be another technosignature emitted as waste heat by an ETC on a rogue planet. An excessive amount of infrared or unnatural changes in the amount of infrared could be detected as a technosignature. Infrared could be emitted unevenly across the planet’s surface, indicating underlying engineering or technology. An unusual mix of different wavelengths of electromagnetic energy could also be a technosignature.

The atmosphere itself, if one existed, could also hold technosignatures. Depending on what was observed, it could contain evidence of terraforming.

For now, astronomers don’t know how many rogue planets there are or if they’re concentrated in some areas of the galaxy. We’re at the starting line when it comes to figuring these things out. But soon, we may get a better idea.

The Vera Rubin Observatory should see first light by 2023. This powerful observatory will image the entire available sky every few nights, and it’ll do it in fine detail. It houses the largest digital camera ever made: a 3.2 gigabyte CCD.

The Vera Rubin will be especially good at detecting transients, that is, anything that changes position or brightness in a couple of days. It’ll have a good chance of spotting any interlopers like rogue planets that might approach our Solar System.

There’s a strong possibility that some of those rogue planets will exhibit unusual emissions or puzzling phenomena. Scientists will probably puzzle over them as they did over Oumuamua.

Maybe another civilization more advanced than us has already faced an existential threat from their dying star. Maybe they made a Herculean effort to capture a rogue planet and engineer it to suit their needs. Maybe they’ve already boarded it and launched it towards a distant, stable, long-lived yellow star, with rocky planets in its habitable zone. Maybe they’re wondering if there’s any life at their destination and how they might be received after their long journey.

Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, man can now reach "with his eyes" much further into the Universe than before.

Greetings,

Dariusz