Credit – University of Rochester, would likely develop much more commonly than technosignatures, captured in the new framework as. Logically that would result from the fact that the number of planets that go on to develop a technologically advanced civilization is much less than the total number of planets that form life in the first place. After all, it took Earth around 4 billion years after its first spark of life to develop an intelligent civilization.
If the lifeforms didn’t die off in the early stages of their technological awakening, they probably would want to expand to other planets and would take their technology with them. Which leads to the second factor – technospheres can potentially outnumber biospheres. For example, if lunar colonization moves steadily over the next few hundred years, the Moon would become a world with no biosphere but would very clearly have a technosphere around it.
One other factor affects how easy it would be to find biosignatures versus technosignatures – how detectable they are. Dr. Wright and his colleagues mention that biosignature detection is challenging – in fact, we currently can’t even detect Earth’s biosignature at the distance of Alpha Centauri. Data from James Webb might eventually allow for that. But even so, radio astronomy projects such as the Square Kilometer Array are much more attuned to detecting what are clearly signs of technology.
AndyTomaswick No kiddin'
AndyTomaswick How far has our technological fingerprint travelled in space? And how many exoplanets have been identified within that distance?