A Fingerprint of Earth From Space

Scientists have developed a fingerprint of Earth from space that could one day help identify other habitable worlds light-years from our own. From a report: If researchers find a planet that matched Earth's fingerprint -- which shows what Earth would look like in infrared if seen by an alien civilization -- out there in the universe, it could indicate they've found a habitable world. The fingerprint -- detailed in a new study published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society -- was created by using data collected by the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment onboard the SCISAT satellite. That data specifically looks at the composition of Earth's atmosphere as sunlight passes through it, revealing methane, ozone and other molecules that could indicate life.

Circular Polarization Spectography

[RuudNL]

Wasn't circular polarization spectroscopy the best indicator for detecting life? I just Googled this because I remembered it, and space.com just wrote an article about it:
https://www.space.com/corkscre... [space.com]

So how does this compare to the fingerprinting technique, when it comes to efficiently scanning all nearby planets/moons?

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[CrimsonAvenger]

Luckily, you noticed that. And with a bit more luck, the scientists who came up with this "not the best by far" idea will realize that they screwed up, and fix it.

And they couldn't have done it without you showing them their errors! Ain't science wonderful?!

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[RuudNL]

Wondering how you know so much more about this than a science department at a university. Maybe you can share some credentials?

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[Dunbal]

nearby planets

If you define "nearby" as taking 100,000 years to get there.

We stick out like a sore thumb

[Tablizer]

Zorg: "That blue planet is full of disgusting soot and plastics. I'm going to vaporize it before the creatures that fouled it spread."

First things first

[Tablizer]

Article: When the crewmembers of the starship Enterprise pull into orbit around a new planet, one of the first things they do is scan for life-forms.

No they don't; they scan for Klingons, Romulans, and Borg. When they are safe, then they scan for general lifeforms.

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[account_deleted]

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Trying too hard

[sentiblue]

I'm against this! These scientists may be too excited about making ourselves known by something we don't even know exists. But what if they did exist and we told them where to find us and they turn out to have bad intentions? We gotta ask ourselves if our existence on Earth is ENOUGH? Do we want to be friends with someone who might stab us in the back? Do we want to run into crowds where most people are psychopaths? Do we lack something on Earth that we hope to get from other planets? If that's even possibl

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[Dunbal]

This method is completely passive, so it doesn't reveal us to any "ET"s. Our radio and television broadcasts already do that job. Considering we have yet to find any sort of life anywhere in space, assuming we will immediately run into intelligent, space-faring extra-terrestrials is jumping to a big, unsubstantiated conclusion.

Crime Scene Investigation

[tmjva]

We need a fingerprint so they can send it to the crime lab and pin the blame on someone else.