Aliens might notice us if we shot a giant laser at them, study says

[TheWorldNewsOrg]

Aliens might notice us if we shot a giant laser at them, study says https://t.co/HbiZxNHAFH pic.twitter.com/JQarQpBXdH

— Motherboard (@motherboard) November 6, 2018

via .ORG

World News

[Money & Finance]

And this would be a good thing? 

Have you ever seen a movie where this ends well? 

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

The problem is not the laser ... it's TARGETING the laser .

Even a highly collimated laser will spread out over 4.2 light years of travel,  just interacting with interstellar dust particles. That's why you have to START with a two megawatt laser beam.

Proxima b is a planet in the Centauri Star System, and as the Galaxy rotates, the star (Proxima Centauri) also has its parabolic orbit around the center of the galaxy., as well as any local motion. THEN, you have the planets orbit around the star you have to take into effect.

Basically the travel resembles an extremely small insect traveling inside the threads on a moving AND rolling screw or bolt.

The table has a motion, the bolt has a motion, and the screw threads (combined local motions) have their own point "A" to point "B trajectory.

THEN you have to calculate to the 1/2 minute where Proxima b will be 4.2 x 2 years in the FUTURE, and fire the laser NOW to intercept the planet 4.2 years from now, the laser traveling at the speed of light..... where the planet will be, not where it appears to be now ... which it isn't now.

What you are seeing now is ALREADY 4.2  years out of date ... the time it took the light to get to your telescope.

You will be firing the laser into empty space, seemingly at nothing in particular.

You will have to double the 4.2 light years, to 8.4 light years, which is only an approximation.   The actual calculations will have to have all the input accurate to 14 decimal places, and the calculations to 14 decimal places.

Roughly equivalent to a person firing  a rifle from Virginia southward to Florida, and someone from Florida firing a rifle northward to Virginia, and having the bullets meet in mid air, and stick together.

 

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

You know how long it would take a radio telescope to find Voyager One, launched in 1977, and now in interstellar space, still transmitting with a 40 watt transmitter powered by a degraded nuclear heated thermocouple?

Just a few seconds, as it is the brightest radio emitter in the night sky.

Giant Suns are so far away, they are not.

[admin]

would 14 decimal places suffice?

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

There are limits to the precision of aiming with any mechanical device.

 

Anything beyond 14 decimal places cannot be made ... and certainly a lot less than that.