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Q&A

Locating rogue planet in deep space based on astronomical observations from its surface?

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Assume that you have a Rogue Planet hurtling through deep space.

Somehow, an alien civilization from, say, 1,000 ly away acquires astronomical data from this planet. This data is in the form of high resolution photographs of the sky above said Rogue Planet (presumably no clouds on an ice planet). This data is collected repeatedly, so the planet's motion may also be calculated.

I imagine this will largely depend on the precise resolution of these photographs, but would it be broadly realistic for - say - a civilization 1,000 ly away to pinpoint the location of this Rogue Planet at any one point in time (say, within the area of the Moon's current rotation around the Earth)? How would precision change with the photos' resolution and the aliens' distance from the Rogue Planet?

Bonus question: How would the accuracy of this method compare with the Earth straight up beaming radio signals at the aliens? (Or, at what resolution would sky photos become competitive with it).

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This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/159939. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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