Which major solar system body could most realistically be artificial?
Which body in the Solar System is the best candidate for being an artificial construct, placed there by a Kardashev Type II Civilization?
Some notes:
- The purpose of this body is to monitor earth, with as little likelihood of detection as possible until Earth reaches Type I status.
- "Major" in this case means well known to the astronomical community and somewhat to the public in general (a planet, moon, dwarf planet, or large asteroid or comet). I am looking for a specific, named body.
- This must be a body that we can observe right now. No fictional planets or ninth planets allowed
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1 answer
Consider a short-period comet (specifically, Comet Encke).
Pros:
- Very short-period comets can have orbital periods of only a few years, with approaches relatively close to Earth ($\sim0.1\text{ AU}$) happening every couple of decades.
- Comets will spend some time away from Earth, and may thus escape the watchful eye of people worrying about asteroids that could hit the Earth. This is an advantage over Jarred Allen's excellent choice.
- Comets can fragment, so if the species wanted to send a scout ship to Earth, it wouldn't appear to be much different form normal cometary behavior. An asteroid spontaneously breaking up, though, would look suspicious.
It might be harder to observe Earth when the "comet" is further away, but this may be an advantage, as it would be much harder for people on Earth to see that the "comet" isn't actually a comet. In addition, using multiple "comets" could mitigate this.
Other notes
It seems that all of the answerers to date agree that the object in question should be small. There are a few good reasons for this:
- Small objects may be harder to observe from Earth unless they're much closer. They can tumble erratically, for instance, so tracking a point on the surface isn't easy.
- It's not easy to land probes on them. We've done it before - you may recall the Philae lander recently - but you can't put a rover on them like we can on mars or other large bodies. These two criteria mean it would be harder for us to figure out that these bodies are artificial.
- They can be closer to Earth than larger bodies can. This is why you don't pick, say, Jupiter, which would be much farther away than any of the choices we're picked so far.
- It's easier to build a small object than a large one.
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