A note on the Vukotić-Gordon mini-earths

Abstract

A recent proposal for a new kind of astroengineering artifact due to Vukotić and Gordon (2022) is discussed, in particular in light of multiple benefits offered by the magnetic Penrose process. It is argued that constructing a large number of artifacts of this kind is sufficiently strongly motivated for any advanced extraterrestrial society that their statistical weight in the set of all technosignatures will be significant. This will, in turn, have important consequences for our practical SETI/search for technosignatures projects.

Keywords

• astrobiology
• extraterrestrial intelligence
• black hole physics
• magnetic fields
• methods: analytical