IF ALIENS have built a massive collider to smash particles together, a new detector could soon pick up the signs.
Most searches for ET focus on radio signals. But Zurab Silagadze at the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics in Novosibirsk, Russia, points out that we could pick up signs of neutrinos created by our alien neighbours鈥� science experiments. Here on Earth physicists are pondering building accelerators that could reach higher energies by smashing together . 鈥淚f we have thought about developing muon colliders, aliens 鈥� if they exist 鈥� could have too,鈥� says Silagadze.
Such muon colliders would create an intense beam of neutrinos that could travel through intergalactic space and be picked up by the being built in Antarctica (see above). The beam would shut down intermittently, distinguishing it from natural astrophysical sources, such as supermassive black holes, says Silagadze ().
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Silagadze isn鈥檛 the first to consider alien neutrino beams. Almost 30 years ago, physicists suggested that aliens might choose to carry out secret intergalactic conversations with neutrinos because technologically immature civilisations like ours would not be able to eavesdrop on them.
Astrobiology 鈥� Learn more in our out-of-this-world .
