Study Suggests That Laser Beams Can Hide Earth from Alien Scouts

Researchers are constantly trying to find the presence of intelligent life forms in planets similar to Earth, but now they are also considering the possibility that these life forms are also trying to do the same thing.

This time, they found a way to put on Earth's own invisibility cloak against anyone looking out there.

When a planet moves directly in front of the sun it orbits, it creates a dip in the light. These events are called transit, NDTV reports.

The process of detecting transits is called the transit method. It has been commonly used by the Kepler spacecraft to search for orbiting planets.

And now, it is not farfetched to think that aliens may be doing the same method in trying to find Earth.

With that possibility in mind, Prof. David Kipping and graduate student Alex Teachey of Columbia University figured out a way to mask the presence of life on Earth by using laser beams, according to The Huffington Post.

Space.com reported that the process involves a very bright laser or a collection of lasers shined toward a suspected snooping planet, during the time the Earth passes in front of the sun from the perspective of that planet.

"If you wanted to cloak a planet, you got to get rid of the dip, you got fill in for the missing starlight," Teachey said in an explanatory video.

The bright lasers will serve as a substitute for the missing light produced during the dip, serving as a "cloaking device" for the planet.

Teachey also said that the narrow light produced by the laser beams will widen significantly as it travels across many light years.

To produce a laser beam that can complete or cover light produced by the sun, Kipping and Teachey calculated that the laser system should be able to produce 30 megawatts of power for about ten hours per year.

According to study published in Oxford's Monthly Notice of the Royal Astronomical Society, researchers said it would take about 250 megawatts of laser blasting at different wavelengths and strength to hide the Earth from more complicated detectors.

Laser beams also have the ability to edit out all life signatures from the Earth to appear as if artificial or look like a dead world to anyone who's looking.