3 ms·

I wonder- would an observer in the Alpha Centauri system be able to pick up the accelerating laser with a telescope? That would be a pretty powerful and tightl

I wonder- would an observer in the Alpha Centauri system be able to pick up the accelerating laser with a telescope? That would be a pretty powerful and tightly directed beam. If an observer did, they would have a few years advance warning and know the exact trajectory of the probe.

sliken 4y ago
Exact? I've been hearing launch times in the minutes to hours before the probe is too far away to accelerate it enough to be worth while. The problem is lasers (on those scales) spread quickly so an ever smaller (even with perfect aiming) fraction of the laser energy will be delivered to the probe. I am curious if the red shift at 1% of the speed of light is enough to throw off the efficiency of the material that's designed for a specific laser frequency. For the same reason the cone of light will be larger than the orbit of any planets around Alpha Centauri. So the exact direction is tough, but that it's heading towards Alpha Centauri is easy. The formula for the angle (in radians) of dispersion: (The laser's wavelength)/(π × The laser's aperture)