Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-qxdb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T10:39:28.970Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Astrometric study of Gaia DR2 stars for interstellar communication

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2020

Naoki Seto Open the ORCID record for Naoki Seto [Opens in a new window]  and
Kazumi Kashiyama
Naoki Seto*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Kyoto University, Kyoto606-8502, Japan
Kazumi Kashiyama
Affiliation:
Research Center for the Early Universe, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo113-0033, Japan Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo113-0033, Japan
*
Author for correspondence: Naoki Seto, E-mail: seto@tap.scphys.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We discuss the prospects of high precision pointing of our transmitter to habitable planets around Galactic main sequence stars. For an efficient signal delivery, the future sky positions of the host stars should be appropriately extrapolated with accuracy better than the beam opening angle Θ of the transmitter. Using the latest data release (DR2) of Gaia, we estimate the accuracy of the extrapolations individually for 4.7 × 107 FGK stars, and find that the total number of targets could be ~107 for the accuracy goal better than 1″. Considering the pairwise nature of communication, our study would be instructive also for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), not only for sending signals outward.

Keywords

Extraterrestrial intelligenceastrobiology
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Astrobiology , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , August 2020 , pp. 308 - 313
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andrae, R, Fouesneau, M, Creevey, O, Ordenovic, C, Mary, N, Burlacu, A, Chaoul, L, Jean-Antoine-Piccolo, A, Kordopatis, G, Korn, A, Lebreton, Y, Panem, C, Pichon, B, Thévenin, F, Walmsley, G and Bailer-Jones, C (2018) Gaia data release 2. First stellar parameters from Apsis. Astronomy and Astrophysics 616, A8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, L (2013) Transmitting signals over interstellar distances: three approaches compared in the context of the Drake equation. International Journal of Astrobiology 12, 212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baum, SD, Haqq-Misra, JD and Domagal-Goldman, SD (2011) Would contact with extraterrestrials benefit or harm humanity? A scenario analysis. Acta Astronautica 68, 2114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benford, J, Benford, G and Benford, D (2010) Messaging with cost-optimized interstellar beacons. Astrobiology 10, 475.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, JR and Cahoy, K (2018) Optical detection of lasers with near-term technology at interstellar distances. The Astrophysical Journal 867, 97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cocconi, G and Morrison, P (1959) Searching for interstellar communications. Nature 184, 844.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Simone, R, Wu, X and Tremaine, S (2004) The stellar velocity distribution in the solar neighbourhood. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 350, 627.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drake, FD (1961) Project ozma. Physics Today 14, 40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaia Collaboration et al. (2018) Gaia data release 2. Summary of the contents and survey properties. Astronomy and Astrophysics 616, A1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gajjar, V, Siemion, A, Croft, S, Brzycki, B, Burgay, M, Carozzi, T, Concu, R, Czech, D, DeBoer, D, DeMarines, J, Drew, J, Enriquez, JE, Fawcett, J, Gallagher, P, Garrett, M, Gizani, N, Hellbourg, G, Holder, J, Isaacson, H, Kudale, S, Lacki, B, Lebofsky, M, Li, D, MacMahon, DHE, McCauley, J, Melis, A, Molinari, E, Murphy, P, Perrodin, D, Pilia, M, Price, DC, Webb, C, Werthimer, D, Williams, D, Worden, P, Zarka, P and Zhang, YG (2019) The breakthrough listen search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society 51, 223.Google Scholar
Gouda, N (2012) Infrared space astrometry missions JASMINE missions. Galactic Archaeology: Near-field Cosmology and the Formation of the Milky Way 458, 417.Google Scholar
Guillochon, J and Loeb, A (2015) SETI via leakage from light sails in exoplanetary systems. The Astrophysical Journal 811, L20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hippke, M (2019) Interstellar communication network. I. Overview and assumptions. arXiv e-prints arXiv:1912.02616.Google Scholar
Hobbs, D (2016) GaiaNIR: Combining optical and Near-Infra-Red (NIR) capabilities with Time-Delay-Integration (TDI) sensors for a future Gaia-like mission. arXiv e-prints arXiv:1609.07325.Google Scholar
Horowitz, P and Sagan, C (1993) Five years of project META: an all-sky narrow-band radio search for extraterrestrial signals. The Astrophysical Journal 415, 218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perryman, M, Hartman, J, Bakos, GÁ and Lindegren, L (2014) Astrometric exoplanet detection with gaia. The Astrophysical Journal 797, 14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petigura, EA, Howard, AW and Marcy, GW (2013) Prevalence of earth-size planets orbiting sun-like stars. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 110, 19273.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schelling, TC (1960) The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Seto, N (2019) Possibility of a coordinated signaling scheme in the galaxy and SETI experiments. The Astrophysical Journal 875, L10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siemion, APV, Demorest, P, Korpela, E, Maddalena, RJ, Werthimer, D, Cobb, J, Howard, AW, Langston, G, Lebofsky, M, Marcy, GW and Tarter, J (2013) A 1.1–1.9 GHz SETI survey of the kepler field. I. A search for narrow-band emission from select targets. The Astrophysical Journal 767, 94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarter, J (2001) The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 39, 511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarter, JC, Agrawal, A, Ackermann, R, Backus, P, Blair, SK, Bradford, MT, Harp, GR, Jordan, J, Kilsdonk, T, Smolek, KE, Richards, J, Ross, J, Shostak, GS and Vakoch, D (2010) SETI turns 50: five decades of progress in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology XIII 781902.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Titov, O and Lambert, S (2013) Improved VLBI measurement of the solar system acceleration. Astronomy and Astrophysics 559, A95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vakoch, DA (2016) In defence of METI. Nature Physics 12, 890.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, JT (2018) Exoplanets and SETI. In Handbook of Exoplanets. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, p. 186.Google Scholar
Wright, JT, Kanodia, S and Lubar, E (2018) How much SETI has been done? Finding needles in the n-dimensional cosmic haystack. The Astronomical Journal 156, 260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaitsev, P (2010) Messaging to extraterrestrial intelligence. In Shuch, HP (ed), Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Chichester, UK: Springer, p. 399.Google Scholar