Released: 10 February 2019
Duration: 16 Minutes, 51 Seconds
Abraham Loeb and Shmuel Bialy kicked up a kerfuffle when they wrote a paper suggesting that one possible explanation for ‘Oumuamua was that it could be an artificial object, in other words, an alien spacecraft—specifically, a lightsail. The two have been praised for their boldness and condemned for their recklessness, but little has been said concerning the possibility of detecting a lightsail as a technosignature in comparison to detecting a “conventional” technosignature such as the radio and laser beacons that SETI searches for. When we look out into the universe for signs of intelligence, if there are technosignatures to be seen, what technologies ought we to expect to be the most common?
Links
Stagnant Supercivilizations and Interstellar Travel
“Could Solar Radiation Pressure Explain ‘Oumuamua’s Peculiar Acceleration?” Bialy and Loeb
Predictably, online media go nuts over ‘Oumuamua and Harvard scientists; “Scientists are perfectly happy to publish an outlandish idea.” by Eric Berger
Breakthrough Starshot
lightsail (Wikipedia)
The Interstellar Age: The Story of the NASA Men and Women Who Flew the Forty-Year Voyager Mission by Jim Bell
NASA Voyager 2 Could Be Nearing Interstellar Space
The Great Filter—Are We Almost Past It? by Robin Hanson
SETI as a Process of Elimination
CreditsWritten and Presented by: Nick Nielsen
Postproduction: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky
This podcast episode is released under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license
Burst 26 - The Cosmic Archipelago, Part 1.
Burst 25 - The Elsie Paper
Episode 38 - The Overview Effect
Burst 24- The Summer of Tabby's Star
Episode 37 - Sonar Calling GJ 273B
A short note for listeners - November 2017
Episode 36 - The One Earth Message
Burst 23 - Tabby Boyajian talks about the May 2017 dip
Burst 22 - Tabby's Star is Dimming
Episode 35 - There is Here
Burst 21 - The Absolute, Definitive Truth about Alien Megastructures
S3 Ep. 10 - Human Up
Burst 20 - The Gaia Data Release 1 and the WTF Star
Season 3 Episode 9 - Ben Montet Makes a Star Weirder
Burst 19 - Lost Stars
Season 3 Episode 8 - Nathaniel Comfort and the Biography of DNA
Burst 18 - Nick Nielsen on the Spoor of Civilizations
S3 Episode 7 - Journey Into the World of Alien Hunting
Season 3 Episode 6 - Not a Glimmer of an Idea
Burst 17 - The Where's The Flux Kickstarter
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Crash Course Pods: The Universe
Universe Today Podcast
Astronomy Cast
The Supermassive Podcast
This Week in Space (Audio)