Imagine a distant exoplanet of the Earth on which a global nuclear war breaks out. How far can we detect explosions associated with this extraterrestrial war?
Our imagination is often associated with mundane experiences. To calibrate what we can expect from the Earth's war zone, let's consider the likely scenario for our own planet.
In his book entitled “Nuclear War: Scenario“, Brilliant journalist Anna Jacobsen describes a realistic scenario in which North Korea first introduces a nuclear ballistic missile towards Washington, soon, and then a submarine missile towards the nuclear power plant in California. In retaliation, in the USA, he sends nuclear ballistic missiles at the northern pole and Russian aircraft.
Therefore, Russia misinterns this movement and decides to introduce 900 nuclear heads in relation to the USA, this escalation triggers US and NATO allies so that they guide their full heads of head in Russia. This extermination scenario can lead to an equivalent explosion of several thousand megaton TNT within a few hours. Assuming radiation efficiency of 50%, the global nuclear war of this size would cause the development of radiation with a total brightness of about 10^{15} watts, which is about a percentage of the total brightness of sunlight reflected from Earth.
Considering that the glow of the nuclear war would have unique signatures in ultraviolet and infrared lights and last for several hours, extraterrestrial flares resulting from the script Anna on the earth telescope could be distinguished from Star UV flares with UV observations.
In the case of nearby land from Earth, at a distance of several decades of delicate, space telescopes can potentially separate the planetary flares spatially from the location of the star. Massaging the vivid delicate delicate is complex, but potentially feasible for delicate dwarfs, the most common type of stars.
Was any candidate detected from the nearby dwarf star? Unfortunately, so far it has not been devoted to finding Flares Annie. There were also no reports of the unoccupied detection of an anomal flame with the characteristics of the nuclear war.
Based on our geopolitical experience, the global nuclear war should be extremely scarce. Even if the world wars of this size are repeated once every century on any particular twenty of the Earth, detection of an outbreak of Anna once a year would require continuous monitoring of one hundred and twenty. Because the flame lasts only a few hours from the century, the probability of observing it at a given moment is one in a million.
In other words, the shutter survey would show an outbreak of Anna in one of the millions of children from the ground that show global nuclear wars once a century. It is unlikely that galactic milk galaxy hosts over a million children of land, in which global nuclear wars are repeated once every century. The probability that this can be assessed with the support of a variant Drake equation In the case of the outbreaks of the nuclear war as technological signatures.
However, even after a solemn discovery of Anna's flame, the explorer would probably suggest that the flare could be the result of a magnetic event re -connection in the exoplanets magnetosphere. Astronomers usually follow the least exotic script and neglect technological alternatives, brushing technological anomalies under the carpet of conservative interpretations. For example, when the land of the land was reported on January 2, 2025, it was first classified as a rocky asteroid and only after its orbit matched the Tesla Roadster-Zamiast car was recognized as a technological object.
In addition to its destructive influence on Earth, the global nuclear war would also change the chemical composition of the planet's atmosphere, which could be examined many years after the end of the war. This signature would be detected to pass an exoplanet, whose orbit is oriented in such a way that it passes in front of the star's face so that the telescope can deduce the composition of its atmosphere.
In particular, the heat released by nuclear fire balls is expected Nitride oxide particlesIn addition to unique radioactive isotopes released in the explosion. Long -lasting particles could mark a war that took place some time ago, increasing the perspectives of detecting an outbreak of Annie out of several hours.
It can be argued that the detection of Annie's flare would not mean extraterrestrial intelligence, but rather extraterrestrial stupidity, because it means a geopolitical tendency to self -destruction. If astronomers decide to search for flashes Annie, they should define research effort as sets instead of seti, because it manifests itself Search for interstellar stupidity.
In the last public event I was asked about the importance of money. I explained that the money is crucial to a certain threshold amount, if he buys you freedom. Through freedom, I mean the possibility of doing what you like to do. In addition to this threshold, occupying more money or using it outside your needs will gain your freedom.
The same lesson may also apply to technological progress of clever civilization. To a certain level, novel technological progress promotes the longevity of clever beings. But in addition to this threshold, advanced technologies make civilization more susceptible to self -destruction.
Have we already crossed this threshold? Are we approaching the inevitable day of the global nuclear war, as is Anna or another disaster caused by artificial intelligence or robots?
To get a better perspective, we can conduct a list of extraterrestrial civilizations and delete their lives in the function of their technological level. When we recognize the threshold of self -destruction, we must stop our own technological development at this level. Without knowing the threshold, our self -propelled car will fall metaphorically from the cliff, like a car in End scene From the movie Thelma and Louise.
Image Source: Pixabay.com
