An artist's illustration of a potential alien attack as depicted in the science television series "Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking."
If or when intelligent extraterrestrials discover us, it's anybody's guess what they'll do. They might befriend us. They might eat us. As Carl Sagan once noted, they might find amusement in some talent we have that they lack and use us as entertainment, just as we keep sea lions in captivity because of their remarkable ability to balance rubber balls on their noses.
All of these scenarios and more are fleshed out in a new article in the journal Acta Astronautica by researchers at Pennsylvania State University. One possibility they've raised has garnered more attention than any other: An extraterrestrial civilization might notice our planet by detecting changes in the spectral signature of Earth — the light radiated by our planet and atmosphere — caused by greenhouse gas emissions. And they might frown upon our behavior.
The group's thinking goes like this: From the rate of change of the chemical composition in our atmosphere, the aliens will deduce our rapid expansion and, because of that, possibly view us as a threat, thinking we'll soon pursue resources on other worlds. [Look! Up in the Sky! A Recent History of UFOs]
"If [they] doubt that our course can be changed, then they may seek to preemptively destroy our civilization in order to protect other civilizations from us," the researchers write. (Several media outlets have inaccurately reported that NASA is behind the new report. One of its authors, astrobiologist Shawn Domagal-Goldman, recently began working at NASA, but wrote the paper with former colleague Seth Baum and others at Penn State, whose institution was solely responsible for funding their research.)
Read More: http://www.livescience.com/15678-aliens-attack-earth-global-warming.html
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