Are you looking at me? How the Earth might appear to alien observers
Aliens spying on us from across interstellar space is a classic trope of science fiction. But working out what those extraterrestrials might see if they pointed their telescopes at us could help in our quest for finding life on distant Earth-like planets, as James Romero explains. By predicting our planet’s appearance across interstellar space, we can tease out the tell-tale signatures of habitability, biology and even technology. Armed with that information, we can then turn the tables and search for alien life among the stars.
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