The Breakthrough Starshot
proposal from Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner got me to think about ancient
alien probes again. Their proposal adds a twist to my earlier thoughts.
I've listed the ancient alien probe blog posts I did earlier
at the bottom of this post.
Hawking, Milner and their collaborators have proposed a plan
to send probes to visit nearby star systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot
Their proposal is to build a multitude of centimetre sized
probes with meter sized light sails, which would be accelerated to 20% the
speed of light by huge lasers. This would allow them to reach the nearest star
system, Alpha Centauri, in about 20 years.
One of the research goals is to develop the technology to
build useful probes that are a thin wafer about 1 or 2 centimetres in size.
While this is a big challenge, they point out that smart phones already have
similar capabilities and the bsic components are almost that small.
When I've thought of alien probes in the past, I've always
envisioned them as similar to the monolith in "2001: A Space Odyssey". It's my favourite movie, so that
influenced my thoughts. I assumed the probe would be of a similar size, something
on the order of 3 to 4 metres.
The Starshot proposal made me realize that alien probes
could well be no more than a few centimetres tall. A probe that small wouldn't
look very impressive, unless you are an ant.
It is quite realistic to search for a 4 metre tall probe.
Large parts of the Moon and Mars have already been photographed in sufficient
detail to spot something that large. However, a search for a 4 centimetre tall
probe is far beyond what we are currently capable of.
A failure to find an alien probe with our current technology
would not prove that there are no alien probes in the solar system.
Some other posts on
Ancient Alien Probes:
"Felix" and The Ancient Astronauts
If There Really Were Ancient Astronauts, What Kind of
Evidence Would We Find?
Why Would Ancient Astronauts Visit Earth?
Do Ancient Alien Probes Watch Earth?
A Brief Thought About the Fermi Paradox
Ancient Alien Visitations: Show Me the Garbage
This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog
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