Exoplanets and SETI

TL;DR

The discovery and study of exoplanets have significantly influenced SETI strategies, leading to new search methods for extraterrestrial intelligence and technosignatures on and around exoplanets.

Contribution

This paper discusses how exoplanet discoveries have transformed SETI search strategies and proposed future methods for detecting technosignatures and megastructures.

Findings

Exoplanet knowledge has inspired new SETI search strategies.

Future characterization techniques will enable technosignature detection.

Potential discovery of free-floating megastructures in planetary searches.

Abstract

The discovery of exoplanets has both focused and expanded the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The consideration of Earth as an exoplanet, the knowledge of the orbital parameters of individual exoplanets, and our new understanding of the prevalence of exoplanets throughout the galaxy have all altered the search strategies of communication SETI efforts, by inspiring new "Schelling points" (i.e. optimal search strategies for beacons). Future efforts to characterize individual planets photometrically and spectroscopically, with imaging and via transit, will also allow for searches for a variety of technosignatures on their surfaces, in their atmospheres, and in orbit around them. In the near-term, searches for new planetary systems might even turn up free-floating megastructures.