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If there are alien astronomers in a neighboring solar system (say, on the exoplanets orbiting Trappist-1, a star that's 40 light years or so away), they might spot the signal from our little corner of the galaxy. The study suggests that we could send Morse code-style messages with the laser by using pulses.
The tech scientists would need to build such a reality. There was a 39-meter telescope under construction in Chile, for instance, while the scrapped US Air Force YAL-1 Airborne Laser (which could destroy mid-flight missiles) had the equivalent power to the laser that Clark says would be required.
There are more practical concerns, such as the possible laser damaging your eyes if you looked directly towards it – even though the beam would be invisible to the naked eye. The laser could also affect cameras on spacecraft that passed through it. As such, Clark suggests that installing the laser system on the far side of the moon would be the safest bet, even if it's a vastly more impractical one.
But what of the flip side to the equation? Could we spot a similar beacon from another planet with our current technology? Well, yes, but it would require a powerful enough telescope (ie one meter or larger) at the exact source location. So, it's unlikely to have things stand. However, imaging tools used to study gases can be detected too much, so we have a slim chance we might be able to invite them over for coffee after all. Assuming they do not annihilate us first, that is.
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