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How we could find advanced civilizations that ran out of fusion fuel
- A recent study looks at how Deuterium-Deuterium (DD) fusion, the most basic isotopic fusion reaction, can be used as a potential technosignature for advanced civilizations. In the study, researchers looked at how long-lived extraterrestrial civilizations may deplete their supplies of deuterium over time, something that would be detectable by space telescopes. Advanced civilizations may adopt fusion power to meet their growing energy needs as they continue to grow and ascend the Kardashev Scale. Deuterium has a natural abundance in Earth’s oceans of about one atom of deuterium in every 6,420 atoms of hydrogen. Extracting deuterium would decrease the D/H ratio of the ocean, which would be detectable in atmospheric water vapor. Low values of D/H in an exoplanet’s atmosphere along with helium could be used to detect a highly advanced and long-lived civilization. The beauty of this approach is that the low D/H values in an exoplanet’s atmosphere would persist long after a civilization went extinct, migrated off-world, or became even more advanced and “transcended."
- A team of researchers considered how evidence of deuterium-deuterium (DD) fusion could be used as a potential technosignature in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
- It has been suggested by many SETI researchers and scientists that advanced civilizations will adopt fusion power to meet their growing energy needs as they continue to grow and ascend the Kardashev Scale.
- Deuterium has a natural abundance in Earth’s oceans of about one atom of deuterium in every 6,420 atoms of hydrogen.
- Extracting deuterium would decrease the D/H ratio of the ocean, which would be detectable in atmospheric water vapor.
- Low values of D/H in an exoplanet’s atmosphere (along with helium) could be used to detect a highly advanced and long-lived civilization.
- Advanced civilizations may adopt fusion power to meet their growing energy needs as they continue to grow and ascend the Kardashev Scale.
- The team used the Spectral Mapping Atmospheric Radiative Transfer (SMART) model to identify the specific wavelengths and emission lines for HDO and H2O.
- This approach is useful as the low D/H values in an exoplanet’s atmosphere would persist long after a civilization went extinct, migrated off-world, or became even more advanced and “transcended”.
- The findings of the study will be useful for future surveys involving the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), NASA’s proposed Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), and the Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE).
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