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New telescopes could spot aliens on planets around distant stars, if they like their cities really brightly lit. John Matson reports
據John Matson報道，只要那些住在遙遠星球上的外星人們樂意于把自己的城市打扮得燈火通明，那新型天文望遠鏡就能夠把他們給找出來。
There's probably no intelligent life in the outer solar system. But it couldn't hurt to check.
也許在外太陽系根本沒有智慧生命的存在。不過探索一下總歸無妨。
A new study suggests that astronomers could soon look for city lights on distant worlds. Astronomical campaigns already in the works, for instance, could spot a large illuminated city as far away as the Kuiper Belt, where Pluto and many other icy worlds orbit. The research is on the site arxiv.org. [Abraham Loeb and Edwin L. Turner, "Detection Technique for Artificially-Illuminated Objects in the Outer Solar System and Beyond"]
一項新的研究表明天文學家有望能很快探測到遙遠星際的城市之光。比方說，這項研究中的一些天文活動所能探測到的城市之光最遠為柯伊伯帶（由冥王星和其它許多冰體環繞所形成的環帶），而所能辨別的范圍約為一座城市那么大。這項研究已被刊登在了arxiv.org網站上。[作者Abraham Loeb, Edwin L. Turner，"太陽系外部及周邊地區人工光源探測技術"]
Artificial illumination on a Kuiper Belt Object would stand out because it would vary less than reflected sunlight does when the world moved toward or away from the sun.
柯伊伯帶天體上的人工照明之所以會顯得特別突出是因為不管它轉向或者轉離太陽，其所反射的太陽光都不會變化很大。
“Just by checking for how their brightness varies with distance, you would be able to identify interesting candidates.” Princeton's Edwin Turner, a co-author of the new study.
這項最新研究的合著者，來自普林斯頓的Edwin Turner說。“只要通過觀測它們的亮度是如何隨觀察者位置而變化的，你就能找到有趣的候選者。”
Unfortunately, Turner says, no telescopes currently in the works would be powerful enough to identify city lights in other planetary systems. Unless the aliens like things really bright.
不幸的是，Turner說，當前的天文望遠鏡都不足以探測到其它行星系的城市之光。除非那些外星人們都是強光控。
“Forthcoming facilities might be able to see artificial lighting on another world if it's really much brighter than we use. It begins to become plausible that we could detect it. A million times would be for sure, and 10,000 times we might have a chance.”
“如果外星球的人工光源比我們所使用的光亮度更大，那么即將應用的新型天文望遠鏡就能夠發現它。這似乎越來越可信了，一百萬次我們就一定能夠探測到外星人，一萬次的話也說不定能行。”
—John Matson
