Prospects for Astrobiology and Technosignature Searches with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time
Abstract
he Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will repeatedly measure the brightness of billions of astrophysical sources using six colour filters. We test a simple idea: real physical signals tend to appear as coordinated patterns across several measurements, whereas noise does not; we call this behaviour ``coherence''. We illustrate the approach with three LSST-like simulations: (i) five Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) surface/activity states, (ii) 648 exoplanet spectra with an injected vegetation-red-edge-like spectral feature, and (iii) 500 multiband light curves. In idealised simulations, a weakly active KBO is strongly separated from its inactive counterpart when all five colours are combined. The injected red-edge-like feature becomes detectable at effective visible-disc coverage of about 13\%, and stacking about 150 detections could reach 5σ. Coherent, natural, and noise-like variability occupy distinct regions. A small Gaia DR3 stellar sample illustrates how colour and stability may help prioritise Galactic search regions.
Related
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BibTeX
@misc{kovacevic2026prospects,
title = {{Prospects for Astrobiology and Technosignature Searches with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time}},
author = {Andjelka B Kovacevic and Nigel J. Mason and Aleksandra Ciprijanovic and Becky Long and Dominika Korczakowska and Maia Moore and Juulia Vuolukka},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2606.00574},
eprint = {2606.00574},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.00574},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Prospects for Astrobiology and Technosignature Searches with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time
AU - Andjelka B Kovacevic
AU - Nigel J. Mason
AU - Aleksandra Ciprijanovic
AU - Becky Long
AU - Dominika Korczakowska
AU - Maia Moore
AU - Juulia Vuolukka
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/17
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2606.00574
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.00574
AB - he Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will repeatedly measure the brightness of billions of astrophysical sources using six colour filters. We test a simple idea: real physical signals tend to appear as coordinated patterns across several measurements, whereas noise does not; we call this behaviour ``coherence''. We illustrate the approach with three LSST-like simulations: (i) five Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) surface/activity states, (ii) 648 exoplanet spectra with an injected vegetation-red-edge-like spectral feature, and (iii) 500 multiband light curves. In idealised simulations, a weakly active KBO is strongly separated from its inactive counterpart when all five colours are combined. The injected red-edge-like feature becomes detectable at effective visible-disc coverage of about 13\%, and stacking about 150 detections could reach 5σ. Coherent, natural, and noise-like variability occupy distinct regions. A small Gaia DR3 stellar sample illustrates how colour and stability may help prioritise Galactic search regions.
ER -