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A recently discovered group of nearby co-orbital objects is an attractive location for extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) to locate a probe to observe Earth, while not being easily seen. These near-Earth objects provide an ideal way to watch our world from a secure natural object. That provides resources an ETI might need: materials, a firm anchor, concealment. These have been little studied by astronomy and not at all by SETI or planetary radar observations.
Benford calls hypothetical, hidden, unknown and unseen alien probes by the name lurkers. In theory, they would be robotic, like our own robot probes sent out to explore our solar system, but doubtless much more advanced. It’s possible that a lurker could be in our solar system, hiding on one of Earth’s co-orbital asteroids, for thousands or millions of years, just silently watching.
If advanced alien civilizations exist they might place AI monitoring devices on or near the worlds of other evolving species to track their progress. Such a robotic sentinel might establish contact with a developing race once that race had reached a certain technological threshold, such as large-scale radio communication or interplanetary flight. A probe located nearby could bide its time while our civilization developed technology that could find it, and, once contacted, could undertake a conversation in real time.Meanwhile, it could have been routinely reporting back on our biosphere and civilization for long eras.
The mission will involve exploring a near-Earth asteroid, named 2016HO3, and a main-belt comet, named 133P, said Liu Jizhong, director of the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration (CNSA).
He said the mission is still under discussion. According to the current plan, a probe will be sent to fly around asteroid 2016HO3 and then land on it to collect samples.
Then the probe will fly back to the proximity of Earth, and a return capsule will be released to bring the samples back to Earth.
Where is the border for them though? Fusion? Fission? Manipulation of space and time?
originally posted by: Elementalist
When we stop killing each other and warring over ideologies and selfish interests..
They will make themselves known.
That could be another 3000 years at this point. Too many dinosaurs holding on to power vying for control over the masses.
There are many ways a civilization of conscious intelligence can live and thrive.
We choose war, materialistic obsessions, and raping the planet without proper restoration.
So not any time soon.
You mean like pushing away the air to all sides?