
An artist’s illustration of a light-sail powered by a radio beam. Image: M. Weiss/Center for Astrophysics
Theorists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have a intriguing idea as to what might be the nature of FRBs (fast radio bursts), an unexplained phenomenon first observed about ten years ago. FRBs are very short but incredibly powerful bursts of radio activity that appear on occasion from outside our galaxy.
In a recent paper, Fast Radio Bursts from Extragalactic Light Sails, Abraham Loeb and his co-author Manasvi Lingam suggest that the FRBs might be the light propulsion for alien sailing ships.