http://www.centauri-dreams.org/2005.08.28_...l#1125582509708

An Infrared Hunt for Artificial Kuiper Belt Objects

"If extraterrestrials were to set up a colony in our Solar System, where would they choose to settle? Gregory Matloff and Anthony R. Martin make the case for the Kuiper Belt in a recent paper for the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) are, after all, easy to exploit as a resource base without the burden of a planet's gravity well. They are rich in volatile materials (more so than main belt asteroids), close enough to the Sun to harvest solar power, and far enough out that visits by those of us living in the inner Solar System would be few and far between.

"Moreover, the orbits of KBOs are relatively unaffected by planetary perturbations. Matloff was intrigued enough by these factors to make a proposed infrared search of the Kuiper Belt the subject of a 2004 paper ("A Proposed Infrared Search for Artificial Kuiper Belt Objects," JBIS 57, pp. 283-287). His new paper follows this up with an examination of the characteristics that artificial KBOs ought to display, comparing these to known objects."