Hairspray Could Help Us Find Advanced Alien Civilizations 211
Hugh Pickens writes "Charles Q. Choi reports that hairspray could one day serve as the sign that aliens have reshaped distant worlds because one group of gases that might be key to terraforming planets are CFCs. 'Our hypothesis is that evidence of intelligent life might be evident in a planetary atmosphere,' says astrobiologist Mark Claire at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science. CFCs are entirely artificial, with no known natural process capable of creating them in atmospheres. Detecting signs of these gases on far-off worlds with telescopes might serve as potent evidence that intelligent alien civilizations were the cause, either intentionally as part of terraforming or accidentally via industrial pollution. 'An industrialized civilization will be one that will use its planetary resources for fabrication, the soon-to-be-detectable-from-Earth atmospheric byproducts of which could be a tell-tale sign of their activity,' says astrobiologist Sanjoy Som. CFCs can be easily recognized in planetary atmospheres because their atmospheric 'fingerprint' (i.e. chemical spectra) is very different from natural elements, and are a tell-tale sign that life on the surface has advanced industrial capabilities. Using state-of-the-art computer models of atmospheric chemistry and climate, researchers plan to discover what visible signs CFCs and other artificial byproducts of alien terraforming or industry might have on exoplanet atmospheres. 'We are about a decade away of being able to measure detailed compositions of the atmospheres of extrasolar planets,' says Som."
Either a hair spray... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Either a hair spray... (Score:5, Funny)
And yet The Coming of The Great White Handkerchief could have left no traces of them for us to find.
1980's (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Much more than that (Score:5, Funny)
Chewbacca begs to differ.
Re:Much more than that (Score:5, Funny)
One planet is almost entirely sugar, and there's some sort of nebula that is basically alcohol.
Where are these wonderful places, and how soon can I get there?!!?
Hair Mousse not Hair Spray (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Much more than that (Score:5, Funny)
They have significantly different materials to work with
You mean that instead of fluorine, chlorine, and carbon, they have unobtanium, duranium and mithril?
Re:Much more than that (Score:5, Funny)
Not only alien life, but proof that stupidity is universal.
Found via the Sigue Sigue Sputnik satellite... (Score:5, Funny)
If it's from hairspray, they can't be all *that* intelligent.
Judge for yourself- here are some pictures [google.co.uk] of aliens we've discovered using the hairspray detection technique.
Their communications technology [apeculture.com] is still remarkably primitive though.