MIT Scientists Propose Giant Laser Beacon to Attract Alien Attention

by Brandon A. Weber                     November 7, 2018                          (bigthink.com)

• Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts (MIT) have published an article in The Astrophysical Journal proposing the construction of a laser beam that could reach up to 20,000 light years away in order to initiate communication with extraterrestrial worlds.

• The MIT article proposes a laser beam “feasibility study” likened to a porch light in our little neighborhood of the galaxy. “If we were to successfully close a handshake and start to communicate, we could flash a message, at a data rate of about a few hundred bits per second, which would get there in just a few years,” said James Clark, graduate student in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and author of the study.

• Using laser technology, we can establish a channel of intergalactic communication capable of 2mbps speeds, like a slow DSL internet connection, allowing a technologically advanced extraterrestrial race to similarly “talk back”. Of course, the communication line itself has to be established first, and that could take decades or even centuries.

• The question of whether it’s actually wise to be broadcasting laser beams and trying to contact aliens around our galaxy is up for hot discussion. In 2010, Stephen Hawking suggested we might not want to reveal ourselves to an alien civilization in the habit of plundering defenseless world like ours. Conversely, in his novel, Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. suggested that benevolent alien beings might very well encounter hostile Earthlings.

• American and French scientists have already been working on an Avlis copper/dye laser beam at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, for astronomical observation.

An Avlis copper/dye laser emits a laser beam guide star into the night skies behind a telescope at the Lawrence Livermore National Labratory in Livermore, California 12 January. Scientists from the US and France sent the beam skyward during a series of experiments to attempt to refine technology for astronomical observation.

A new article by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology was just published in The Astrophysical Journal, and it’s proposing that humans can build a laser capable of effectively sending out beams to various locations—a relatively close proximity, granted—that would create enough of an anomaly in the light signals that are already broadcast by our own Sun that an intelligent alien civilization could see it and go… wait, what?!

Potentially, the laser beams could reach up to 20,000 light years away.

“If we were to successfully close a handshake and start to communicate, we could flash a message, at a data rate of about a few hundred bits per second, which would get there in just a few years,” said James Clark, graduate student in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and author of the study.

In the MIT article announcing the “feasibility study,” the concept was likened to a porch light in our little neighborhood of the galaxy.

It’s possible to accomplish, according to MIT, and it could create a tantalizing reality in which communication lines can be established with said civilization, once found.

It gets even more interesting if we happen upon aliens who understand what it is, and then, basically “talk back” using similar methods of communication; using lasers, we can establish a channel capable of 2mbps speeds. In other words, a somewhat slow but still capable Internet connection. Think basic DSL type of data transfers.

Of course, the communication line itself has to be established first, and that could take decades or even centuries.

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