Cancer Posted June 22, 2006 Report Share Posted June 22, 2006 I knew the author of this paper ... it came out just about exactly 20 years ago, and discussed how one would be able to detect Daedalus-class antimatter-powered starships with gamma-ray telescopes. (He dismisses fusion-powered starships because they are less efficient.) Nyrath's Project Rho website discusses slower-than-light antimatter rockets (I see mention of the Valyrie rocket but not the Project Daedalus rocket, but they're both "simple" relativistic antimatter rockets). Turns out you could see those things easily for quite some distance with presently-existing tech (it didn't quite exist at the time the paper was written, but it was coming), and you'd be able to recognize them by their motion up to about 300 parsecs (1000 light-years) away. (That should tell you something about just how much gamma radiation these things produce, BTW; stealthy they ain't.) I'll have to look up the specs for subsequent gamma-ray telescopes. A lot of work was done to get fast, high-angular-resolution instruments so that the gamma-ray bursters could be identified in as close to real time as possible. Whether those changes would help to identify a continuously-on but moving source is another question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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