Tuesday 5 June 2012
Lighting up the Night
As the world waits for Venus to transit in front of the Sun...
I was thinking. Forgive my laymanistic terninology as well. Kepler is searching for planets by detecting them passing their own Sun(s). Some are seeing if the light passing through the atmospheres could be passing through certain gasses by checking the light ranges seen.
Effectively though the planet passing in front of the Sun should have a 'dark side' and therefore show no light whatsoever.But what if the planet WERE showing light, for example streetlights, of a civilisation lighting it's evening? Would this be distinguishable?
Just a thought but is it scientifically provable (or even detectable)?
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2 comments:
No. Lights too weak to be picked up by conventional detectors (even the most advanced). The 'suns' are providing a suitable high energy source and a baseline with which to compare the atmospheric changes. Now if we could get closer.....
With current conventional detectors...
Here's a further thought. If we already had a 'baseline' for dark sides if something appeared above this would it suggest an anomoly?
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