Turning Planets into Spaceships: A Way for Civilizations to Escape Dying Stars and Travel the Galaxy
TL;DR
Irina Romanovskaya, a professor at Houston Community College, suggests advanced civilizations might convert rogue planets into spacecraft to escape dying stars. These “lifeboat” planets could provide gravity, space, and water for long journeys across the galaxy, potentially enabling the colonization of other planetary systems. Rogue planets like Sedna could serve as cosmic hitchhiking vessels. The theory also presents the possibility of detecting alien technosignatures on these traveling planets, offering a new way to search for extraterrestrial civilizations.
“The first thing I thought of was, once we leave our sun, wouldn’t we have a HUGE problem of not HAVING a sun until we arrive at Alpha Centauri?” Don’t forget to share your thoughts on this intriguing theory in the comment section below!
Even at light speed, it would take more than four years to reach the closest star system.
Escaping a solar system is no small feat. However, a paper published in the International Journal of Astrobiology and highlighted by Universe Today suggests an advanced civilization might accomplish this by turning an entire planet into a massive spacecraft.
According to Irina Romanovskaya, a professor at Houston Community College, a rogue planet could serve as a “lifeboat,” enabling a civilization to leave its dying star.
“I propose that extraterrestrial civilizations may use free-floating planets as interstellar transportation to reach, explore, and colonize planetary systems,” Romanovskaya wrote.
Nature may have already provided such an opportunity by launching rogue planets with habitable subsurface oceans into the galaxy. Astronomers have long speculated that the Oort Cloud, a distant region surrounding our solar system, may house small icy planets.
If we were to harness such a world, Romanovskaya suggests it could offer everything necessary for the long journey.
“Free-floating planets can provide constant surface gravity, large amounts of space, and resources,” she explained. “Free-floating planets with surface and subsurface oceans can supply water for consumption and shield against space radiation.”
If the planet was too dark or uninhabitable, advanced civilizations might develop fusion reactors or similar technologies to make it livable, Romanovskaya added.
She suggests that “cosmic hitchhikers” could one day use objects like Sedna, a dwarf planet with an unusual orbit in our solar system’s outer reaches, as a means to escape.
However, one drawback of riding a rogue planet is that its core could cool and no longer sustain liquid water, if such oceans exist.
These planets would also be far from any other vital resources needed for survival.
“Therefore, instead of making free-floating planets their permanent homes, extraterrestrial civilizations would use the free-floating planets as interstellar transportation to reach and colonize other planetary systems,” Romanovskaya concluded.
The theory also introduces the intriguing idea that SETI researchers could potentially detect aliens traveling on planets used as spacecraft.
“I propose possible technosignatures and artifacts that may be produced by extraterrestrial civilizations using free-floating planets for interstellar migration and interstellar colonization, as well as strategies for the search for their technosignatures and artifacts,” Romanovskaya wrote.
This raises the exciting possibility of witnessing a civilization in the process of escaping its home star — and perhaps gaining some valuable insights, especially if our Sun ever threatens to become a destructive red giant in the distant future.
