When it comes to looking for ways of alien life, space missions today are focused on investigating possible traces of simple life, but there is also a way to determine it, and this has to do with searching for evidence of ancient technological civilizations.
Jason Wright is an American scientist and professor of astrophysics and astronomy at the Pennsylvania State University. Wright has devoted himself to the search for ancient civilizations with technological capabilities, but in other worlds.
In an article published and titled “Prior Indigenous Technological Species”, the researcher suggests that intelligent beings may have lived in Mars a long time ago, when this planet had more water on its surface. Another option is Venus before scorching temperatures make life almost impossible, or even on Earth.
Wright bases his study on the possibility of finding “technosignatures”, which would be the traces left by civilizations like humanity, but earlier, much earlier (we are talking about tens or hundreds of millions of years).
Evidence of technology could be found on other worlds
Although the scientist admits that most of this evidence must have already been lost, for many reasons, it is possible that traces of these presences can still be found in the past.
Wright suggests that in the case of Venus, a greenhouse effect would have removed any existing footprints of ancient technological civilizations. In the case of Earth, it is possible that the movement of tectonic plates and surface erosion could have erased most of the evidence from ancient civilizations.
Wright wrote in his research:
“Evidence of indigenous technosignatures could be of extreme antiquity, and the places where they could be found are limited to searching below the surface of the planet Mars or our satellite (Moon), and even on exoplanets, that is, on worlds outside the solar system”.
Intraterrestrial search
Wright continues:
“In underground structures, which are protected from the planet’s surface hazards, there may still be traces that would indicate an artificial nature that has not been modified and that may still be detectable as ancient technology.”
The researcher also stated that if greater importance were given to the subject of space archeology, great discoveries of possible extraterrestrial structures and artifacts could be made.
Traces of alien settlements, with evidence of technosignatures, could be found if a better search was performed with a new approach. Credit: University of Rochester illustration / Michael Osadciw Today, science is largely engaged in the search for microbial life in the solar system, but not where possible. smart life. Only what can be adapted in the paradigm that poses humanity as the only civilization in our cosmic neighborhood is investigated.
Wright writes: “If we were to change that approach, we could find various types of technosignatures. Ancient artificial structures of alien origin could be found, or even settlements or feasible bases. This could be detected using the tools we use on Earth, for example with georadar. “
This is a possibility to consider, as Wright indicates. Beneath our feet may be concrete evidence of extraterrestrial life or ancient and lost civilizations.
Jason Wright’s research was published on the pre-print server arXiv.org.
