Exo-Lasers

An extra-terrestrial civilisation more advanced than us, is likely to have discovered the many advantages of laser communication: more privacy, higher bit rate, and compact beam launching. Such lasers could be pulsed or continuous, and show monochromatic emission at visible, infrared, or ultraviolet wavelengths.  At VASCO and SpaceLaserAwareness, we are investigating as many wavelengths as possible for laser signals.

Short-lived transients are not vanishing stars, but they are excellent starting points to look for lasers through follow-up observations of the transients. That is because a laser pulse could look like a transient in our images. With follow-up observations, we can exclude all transients that are caused by flaring stars or other natural astrophysical phenomena and monitor the remaining ones.