Could Mysterious Cosmic Light Flashes Be Powering Alien Spacecraft?

[Judi Lynn]

Could Mysterious Cosmic Light Flashes Be Powering Alien Spacecraft?
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | March 10, 2017 01:51pm ET



Bizarre flashes of cosmic light may actually be generated by advanced alien civilizations, as a way to accelerate interstellar spacecraft to tremendous speeds, a new study suggests.

Astronomers have catalogued just 20 or so of these brief, superbright flashes, which are known as fast radio bursts (FRBs), since the first one was detected in 2007. FRBs seem to be coming from galaxies billions of light-years away, but what's causing them remains a mystery.

"Fast radio bursts are exceedingly bright given their short duration and origin at great distances, and we haven't identified a possible natural source with any confidence," study co-author Avi Loeb, a theorist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a statement Thursday (March 9). "An artificial origin is worth contemplating and checking." [5 Bold Claims of Alien Life]

One potential artificial origin, according to the new study, might be a gigantic radio transmitter built by intelligent aliens. So Loeb and lead author Manasvi Lingam, of Harvard University, investigated the feasibility of this possible explanation.

More:
http://www.livescience.com/58213-could-mysterious-cosmic-light-flashes-be-powering-alien-spacecraft.html?utm_source=notification

[catbyte]

1. Warp Speed 10?

It's so far away that just thinking about it makes my head hurt. I don't think that my simian brain can process it. It's cool, but if it's billions of light-years away, that means that the alien civilization spacecraft went into warp speed billions of years ago, right? Or are they just about ready to pop into our galaxy? See, my head's starting to hurt, lol.

[longship]

2. They're extra galactic.

So not bloody likely.

In fact, BZZZZZZZZZT! Sorry!

[Warren DeMontague]

3. Fascinating, if a bit far fetched, speculation

it's interesting that we imagine extraterrestrial civilizations to coincidentally be pursuing interstellar travel or communication at the precise apex of the technological level we ourselves, are at- namely, we've had a lot of talk in the past year or so about using lasers to propel ultra-light micro probes to, say, Alpha Centauri.

This, from the article, jumped out at me, though:

indeed, a transmitter capable of generating FRB-like signals could drive an interstellar spacecraft weighing 1 million tons or so, Lingam and Loeb calculated.

"That's big enough to carry living passengers across interstellar or even intergalactic distances," Lingam said in the same statement.

...great. But how do those guys stop?

[defacto7]

5. Theoretically point your radio in the oposite direction

What gets me about even entertaining such travel is the junk factor. Say a million ton craft is bopping along at a couple hundred thousand mph, the liklihood of hitting uknown space debris is pretty miniscule but getting anywhere is also pretty miniscule. Push that up to 10% light speed and you may reach a few places but the probability of running into debris goes up to rather concerning levels. But then if you're powering with FRB's I suppose you could figure out that problem.
Just to say, I think looking into sources unknown is great, tagging it to interstellar space travel seems a waste of time to me.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. I'm just using the proposed designs people have been talking about recently, scaled up.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/inside-the-breakthrough-starshot-mission-to-alpha-centauri/

Say you've got this super powerful source to provide the "push", right... but unless you've got one on the other end to push in the other direction, how to stop?

Unless the ship itself is the source, but I wasn't thinking that was what they were saying.

And yeah, obviously highly speculative. But fun to think about anyway.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. Use a two-part sail, which splits in two for the deceleration phase.

http://www.transorbital.net/Library/D001_AxA.html
http://www.lunarsail.com/LightSail/rit-1.pdf

scroll to Fig. 5 on p. 8. This paper describes laser-pushed sails, but microwave-pushed sails would use similar principles. Interestingly, both electric and magnetic sails can be used for propulsion.

[Warren DeMontague]

8. Cool. thanks!

Yeah, I have been reading up on the whole starshot initiative thing, others had suggested slinging the mini-probes in such a way as to use the gravity of Alpha Centauri A and B to slow them down and potentially swing them around to be actually be gravitationally captured by Proxima Centauri, etc. (where I think they know there's at least one exoplanet) as well.

But they're talking, of course, about a probe or probes weighing maybe a gram each, max.

The energy and engineering for an actual interstellar craft is on a totally different scale, of course. Cool ideas, to be sure, though.

[3blake7]

16. pdf link

hey! i was wondering if you have a link to http://www.lunarsail.com/LightSail/rit-1.pdf that is still online?

Congress needs to invest more money into beam-powered sails, spinning space stations with artificial gravity and an autonomous self-replicating industry. I also think the star tram should be seriously considered. Seems NASA is stagnant and trying relive past glory by doing the moon again when they should be building the first trans-continental railroad, unleashing a wave of colonists to develop new territory.

[canetoad]

17. The document you're looking for

Doesn't seem to be online any more. Have a look at the "Solar Sail Design and Qualification" link on this page. It may have been moved or renamed.

https://wiki.rit.edu/display/SPEX/Lightsail-A

[3blake7]

18. thanks

thanks but i dont think that is the same one. someone said that "Look at fig.4 page 7 and fig.5 page 8 for the braking plan." that's what i was interested in seeing.

[BumRushDaShow]

19. The guy who started the kickstarter for LunarSail

may have dropped it and took the site down and is now spending his time and effort (and kickstarter investors speculate their money) with a new company, Aphelion Orbitals (co-founded by him, with a focus on nanosats) - http://www.aphelionorbitals.com/the-team

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aphelion-orbitals-secures-seed-funding-announces-plans-to-revolutionize-low-cost-space-access-300496189.html?tc=eml_cleartime

[dhill926]

4. I hope so....

come here soon and fix this shit...

[Warren DeMontague]

9. "Take us to your le--- actually, come to think of it

...is there anyone else, there, we could talk to?"

[Judi Lynn]

11. No one would want to admit who/what the leader is!

[center]

[Warren DeMontague]

14. Seriously, or make up some excuse.

"Yeah, what we do is, we pick the absolute least qualified among us to be our leader. As you can see we really outdid ourselves, here"

[cstanleytech]

10. I doubt its aliens.

If it was aliens with some sort of FTL then we should be seeing millions if not billions across the entire universe even our own galaxy but we arent and its probably not some sort of giant radio either as radio is far to slow to be useful over anything except for in system communication so if any such advanced civilizations exist they will either have something that clearly that doesnt travel at the speed of current radio or they would have to rely on courier ships for communication if they lack such ftl communication.
No, what its probably going to turn out to be is some semi rare star or something to do with a blackhole if not both.

[Judi Lynn]

12. What intelligent society would ever want to communicate with a violent, greedy, dishonest one? n/t

[cstanleytech]

13. Probably not many unless they wanted to help but its a moot point as the events

that created them happened billions of years ago so its not aliens and its most likely something to do with the early large stars in the universe at a guess.

[hunter]

15. There's no difference between a directed high energy propulsion system and a weapon.

Larry Niven wrote about fusion rocket exhausts used to torch enemies.

If this is a war let's be thankful it's a long time ago in a galaxy far away.