Scientists are able to observe these planets from vast distances. You would think with technological capability like this that we would also be able to detect if planets in these zones possess life on them. Trying to understand how or why this is the case.
In: Planetary Science
We mostly detect these planets indirectly. The star wobbles because it gets pulled around by planet orbiting it or the star goes dimmer in regular intervals when a planet flies between it and the earth.
This is enough to tell us that there is a planet there and how big it is, but not much more.
When we can look at light passing through the atmosphere we might even get some idea what that is made of and even look for stuff that shouldn’t exist in an atmosphere naturally like oxygen, but that would be an extreme case.
None of this is good enough to pick up intelligent life.
Of course if the life was intelligent enough to have radio and television broadcast we could pick those up. And if they were advanced enough to build vast megastructures like dyson swarm we would be able to see that much easier than planets.
If they were a bit more advanced than us and send out colony ships or at least self replicating probes a short while ago in cosmic terms. We wouldn’t even need to look up to find them, they would be here.
No luck so far, so there are probably no technologically advanced aliens out there.
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