RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
| Subject: Laser-powered planetary cloaking device could save us from aliens, no joke Sun Apr 03, 2016 4:21 am | |
| It sounds like an April Fool's joke: firing lasers into space to disguise Earth from the wandering eyes of hyper-intelligent blood-thirsty aliens.
But that's just what two astronomers at Columbia University in New York have suggested.
David Kipping and Alex Teachey study planetary transits – periodic dips in the light coming from distant stars that indicate they have planets orbiting them. It's the most common way that astronomers have identified what are known as "exoplanets" – rocky or gaseous satellites travelling around stars light years from Earth. So far, more than 1000 such exoplanets have been detected from data gathered from NASA's Kepler space telescope.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/laserpowered-planetary-cloaking-device-could-save-us-from-aliens-no-joke-20160401-gnw5yl.html#ixzz44kXr7Zre |
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