Thursday, August 13, 2009

Spotting the influence of aliens

Newfound planet orbits backward - Space.com- msnbc.com

This story reminds me of something I have been meaning to post about for a while.

Astronomers keep finding signs of planets around other stars. Yet they all seem to be pretty weird in one way or another, and don't resemble our solar system at all.

My question: has anyone seriously put their mind to the question of how odd a planetary orbit or solar system would have to look to be indicative of alien mega-engineering?

Presumably, thought has been given to what a Dyson sphere or "swarm" would look like (or a Niven "ringworld"), but isn't it possible for there to be other planetary engineering, on a less grand scale, that may be visible from Earth?

Would a weird enough orbit of something assumed to be a planet be enough?

Update: another "backwards planet" found.

By the way, just to be clear, I am not suggesting that a retrograde orbit alone is anything to be very suspicious of. Seeing we have a retrograde moon in our own solar system, it can just happen. Still, what would it take to assume alien engineering?

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