IAUS 404: Advancing the Search for Technosignatures

The search for extraterrestrial life involves an effort to understand a broad range of plausible biosignatures that could arise in extraterrestrial environments. Technology is one possible consequence of planetary-scale life, which could generate “technosignatures” that could be abundant, long-lived, highly detectable, and unambiguous compared to other biosignatures.

This online symposium seeks to advance the search for technosignatures by inviting contributions on any theoretical, instrumental, observational, or data analysis ideas for characterizing and detecting technosignatures. Emphasis will be placed on methods that are relevant to current and future exoplanet observations with facilities such as space- or ground-based telescopes, ongoing solar system exploration missions, and any other analyses of data from existing Earth or space observations. The goal of this symposium is to foster discussion on ways to advance the search for technosignatures by leveraging existing missions and data archives.