Disclaimer: I haven’t checked any of this to see if its reasonable!

My guess is, you would need the precise mass and size of the host star and the precise period of brightness change to establish an orbital radius and velocity. Using the radius, velocity and the precise rise (dim) time from max bright to least bright you could establish an estimate for the diameter of the planet. Knowing this you could predicted the amount of dimming you would expect and compare it to observed. I would be amazed if it is even remotely possible for the nearest known exoplanet. I think your best bet would be, after having found an exoplanet with a known period, to point a radio telescope at it (much better sensitivity and resolution then optical) and see if you pick up a late night monologue in alienese.

Your best bet is SETI. That is if it was still on…

I understand that one of the techniques to detect exoplanets is to measure the delta in luminescence of a star that occurs when a planet transits in front of it.

Is it possible to, through some other independent techniques, figure out the size of the planet? If so, could that data be compared against the luminescence delta to see if there is a significant mismatch? And if so, could that be used as a way to indicate that the exoplanet itself is emitting light which might indicate intelligent life and technology?

There are a few steps to this and lots of room for problems from the lack of precision in our instruments, but it seems like it might be possible.

Anyone have any insight on this?

In order to bypass moderation, go to vimeo and look at video number 23839605. Just put the number after the slash in the dot com with a slash following. If you are searching for it, the title is “Interactive Exploration of a Dynamical System”.

At night, the view is remarkably similar to the posted photo, just a different scale. The small dots of light would be individual street lights, and the large patch might be a shopping mall. The yellow areas on the aeronautical charts are supposed to depict the actual lighted areas at night (see http://www.skyvector.com)

Imagine waking up, looking outside your window, and having no clue at all even what part of the Earth you’re seeing!

I’ve had mornings like that.

In fact, can you shoot the sun/stars from low-Earth orbit; does that work?

Indeed – in GE I once switched clouds on and everything else off, went down to a roughly ISS-ish altitude, rotated the view to oblique and started scrolling. It was liking I was scrolling over an alien landscape – most landmarks I couldn’t recognize from such an unfamiliar angle. Of course, the ISS crew is much more skilled in the respective disciplines for finding their way around, but let’s say they were in the South Pacific in a region without islands; nothing to see but water. Would they still be able to roughly approximate their position based on things like the height, angle, trajectory etc. of the sun, moon, and stars as they orbit?