Can a Bright Flash in Space Help Detect Dark Objects Beyond Pluto?

[Memnoch]

Upon reading about the discovery of Sedna and thinking about other objects that may lay beyond Pluto I thought of an interesting way of possibly viewing these darker objects.
Would it be possible to send a very large object into space beyond Jupiter that would emit a very bright flash, brighter than our sun? If we did this may we be able to capture the light that is reflected back from objects that would not be so detectable with our Sun's natural light reflection?
Essentially "shedding light" on the outter reaches of our Solar System?
It's also similar to taking a picture using a flash.
Just another random thought I thought I would throw out.
Kind Regards,
Memnoch

 

[Janitor]

A highly inventive idea! I wonder if anyone has ever even thought along those lines? Some sort of nuclear blast or something might light that sucker up pretty good. But even in the Hubble Telescope, I wonder if a planetoid (if that's what you call it) would be much more than a momentarily bright dot of light.

From a cost effectiveness point of view, I suppose just sending a Galileo-type probe out there to take relatively long exposures of the object from close up in ordinary dim sunlight will continue to be the way to go.

 

[Janitor]

I remember that when a good-sized comet hit Jupiter in a dozen or so pieces, one after the other, there were some flashes of light, but it still took a professional, high-dollar telescope to see the light. I am not sure if current technology would even be able to match that quantity of short-duration light, let alone provide some sort of long-duration light.

 

[Memnoch]

Yeah, good point. I was thinking of sending Tons upon Tons of Magnesium up since it burns brighter than the sun I think. :)

 

[Janitor]

Did you see a chemistry link provided by Monique today in another thread? There are some videos there of some highly reactive chemicals flaring up, including sodium. I think one of the videos involved strips of magnesium laid on dry ice.

 

[Memnoch]

Hmmm, Very cool article!
Back in High School I accidently ignited Magnesium. Thankfully the class was wearing tinted goggles. My teacher at that time told us how Magnesium burned brighter than the light our Sun produced. It also burns within H20. It did unfortunately burn the top of the desk but thankfully it wasn't the whole spindle of Magnesium. LOL
All that was required to ignite it was a bunsen burner.
Magnesium is also very light compared to other metals.
It wouldn't take much force to send enough up for the right lighting effect to produce a "flash". heh

 

[Integral]

When Mg burns it is an oxidation process, so O_{2[/sup] is required. The mass required to do what you want is prohibitive. It would also take an equally prohibitive mass of fusible material to produce enough light to illuminate anything on such a scale.}

 

[Memnoch]

If we can barely see Sedna with our current technology and light is highly weak in that area due to it's distance from the sun, then I'm sure we can reveal more if we bring a powerful enough flash to a certain distance and ignite it somehow.
That or maybe attach a highly sensitive light reciever to the device you'd be sending so it could capture all objects the light reflected off of.
I see what you're saying in regards to having large enough mass.
Would detonating a nuclear explosive like Janitor mentioned be feasible to produce enough light for highly sensitive recievers to pick up reflective objects?

 

[Janitor]

Would detonating a nuclear explosive like Janitor mentioned be feasible to produce enough light for highly sensitive recievers to pick up reflective objects?

I just checked a website, and saw that the largest pieces of the comet Shoemaker-Levy to hit Jupiter detonated with the equivalent of 6 million megatons of TNT. Compare that to the relatively piddling 15 megatons that the largest U.S. nuclear bomb test released. Does anybody know if the comet strike on Jupiter's atmosphere made any of the Jovian moons look significantly brighter than normal?

On the other hand, during WW II flares dropped by aircraft over blacked-out European cities ahead of a wave of night bombers lit up the cities well enough for the bombardiers to see their targets. As Integral points out, you would need to provide an oxidizer if you were going to use a magnesium flare. I could just about see a lander dropping some appropriately oxidized flare a few thousand feet above the surface on its way down, to get some pictures of a well-lit landscape during the last part of its descent. The downside is that every extra pound of payload weight costs dearly in terms of booster rocket size for a mission to the outer solar system, and if including flares meant leaving off certain instruments, there would be quite a political wrangle over it among scientists, I would think.

 

[Imparcticle]

But if something is as bright as the sun, wouldn't it also be exceptionally hot? Hot enough to force environmentally chaotic reactions to occur on planets? If it was as hot as the sun, it would probably be able to affect our planet, Mars (we'll finally be able to make the CO₂(?) ice on Mars melt!). Would it also affect the astroid belt in any way?

 

[Memnoch]

I don't believe it would. If you see a flash of lightning do you feel it's heat?

 

[Imparcticle]

Lightening occurs for a brief moment, and it is not as bright as the sun.

 

[Memnoch]

Very true, Lightning is brief.
My idea works as if you were taking a picture so to speak so you would not need a prolonged burn or flash. That would just get in the way of capturing the light reflected from objects in space and the timing. You'd end up flooding the film with unnecessary light. It's like taking a picture. Send a very bright object in space to produce an emmence flash of light. Then using our awesome technology, capture the light that's reflected off objects that our camera's cannot really detect from here on Earth. Just like taking a picture so to speak and using the Flash from your camera.
If the light reflected was too dim then why not send a highly advanced camera along the way, trailing the flasher/ flash emmiting device, to capture the reflection at that distance.
If you read my first post you'd see that this idea came from the article I read about the Sedna object found in space. A small red ice planet that we recently found right beyond Pluto. Apparently that object wasn't emmitting much light due to it's distance from the Sun. Why not bring the Sun, so to speak, to the outter rim to create a massive flash so our camera's can capture the light reflected from other objects?
This idea also might work with discovering more objects within the Asteroid belt.
My lightning question was just an analogy as to not being able to feel heat from a lightning bolt yet the lightning bolt produces a large flash.
I'm sure if you send an object to the desolate regions of space that produces a flash as powerful as our sun it wouldn't have an effect on our planet since it's obviously not having an effect on an ice planet called Sedna.
It would just possibly illuminate more objects within a region of space that we cannot really see based on the distance of those objects from our Sun.

 

[chroot]

It's an interesting idea, but totally unfeasible with existing space technology. It'll probably never be feasible. Believe it or not, it's much, much cheaper to design, build, and launch a super-sophisticated telescope array like the Terrestrial Planet Finder than it is to send up tons and tons of magnesium -- and the 'scopes a heck of a lot more useful, to boot. Sending mass to orbit is exceptionally, exceptionally expensive in terms of $/kg. Sending large masses to interplanetary space is just not reasonable, and probably never will be.

- Warren

 

[Memnoch]

Electrical sparks or something similiar? The magnesium catch was just another random idea thrown out for the concept.
Collect hydrogen along the way and then fuse it into one large electrical spark. Send a telescope behind the light emmitting device and capture the reflection :)
That or build a static electricity collection device that uses friction to build a static charge. Using the motion of a craft I'm sure you could create a wheel type device that would build a static charge. Release that static charge unto a planet or designated object that would act as a ground and then you'd produce an amazing flash :) heh
Just throwing out ideas based on the concept :)
Thx for the support though guys :) You all Rock! :)
-=|peace|=-

 

[Phobos]

Very creative idea, Memnoch. Maybe there's something that could be done (e.g., if there was a particular area where you suspected something dark existed you wanted to light up rather than blasting vast regions of space). My first impression though is to agree with chroot that it would be cheaper & more efficient to build better telescopes.

 

[Memnoch]

Well, with the new form of glass that's just been developed it may be more cost effective to build a telescope. Although using energy collecting technology from the late 1800's to early 1900's might save some money too :)
It could be a joint project through with other countries if finding what other celestial bodies are at our Solar Systems edge is that serious. That or discovering more asteroids and so on.
It might also be another way to utilize our current situation within space in regards to enhancing areas our current satelites cannot view. Such as with Uropa or other bodies of Jupiter. There's actually a lot of applicible uses with this idea for counting objects in space even. The device could constantly build a charge after it's already discharged it's capacity and then produce more flashes for object tracking purposes.
It's kinda like using Light like Sonar. :)

 

[Nereid]

If Sedna were on the other side of the solar system, how much brighter would the Memnoch flash have to be? I mean, it's currently ~75 au away in THIS direction, so to light it up with a flash, you'd have to be reasonably close to it; but what if it were ~75 au away in a completely different direction?

Another way of asking this is: "how do you know in which direction to look (for anything like a Sedna)?"

It's a bit like radar astronomy; we can get - from here on Earth - radar images of Venus, Mercury, even Titan, but only because we know where they are (and radar is a bit like Memnoch's flash, only much much much cheaper to produce).

Finally, Sedna isn't all that difficult to 'see'; I predict within a year or two there will be reports of amateur astronomers showing CCD pictures to friends, with arrows pointing to a tiny dot that is Sedna. Objects like Sedna are hard to find because there are ~>1 billion 'tiny dots' in the whole sky - which ones are Sednas? Indeed, there are projects on the drawing board for telescopes that should be able to find hundreds of Sednas a year (if they exist), all for less $$ than is spent on petfood over a long weekend.

 

[Memnoch]

Well the concept doesn't only revolve around Sedna but also other dim objects in space like maybe Asteroids? Recently NASA is pumping more funds into finding objects in space that are hard to detect and may pose future threat to the earth. This might be another way to find them.
I was thinking that whatever device that emits the flash would have to be brighter or as bright as our sun but only for a split second. Then capture the photons that are emmitted by maybe Hubble in the direction of the flash? Essentially you would see 2 flashes. One from the first flash and the second from the reflection of the photons off of nearby objects.
Radar is pretty cheap and sending that out into space may also help NASA since it's pretty cost effective.
I was thinking that a flash might be a bit more powerful than Radar and also may not get jammed like Radar can be.
In regards to knowing where to place this flash then one would have to rely on what we already know of known objects and how they're affected by Gravity and potential objects that may have influence on them.
A while ago there was a big propaganda stunt by the media claiming there was a distant planet that was affecting the orbits of Saturn and Uranus. Place the flash in the general direction and try to illuminate that area to see what we cannot see already.
Or with Asteroids, place the flash in the asteroid belt and count the asteroids that light reflects from.
If you use a repeated flash then you may be able to track the asteroids movement if we cannot see them already.
It may be possible to use Blue light since blue light travels farther than any other color in the spectrum. Well, underwater that applies and I'm not sure if that applies to space. But it may be more detectable by our sensors that would capture the photons.
Just random ideas thrown out. heh
Thanks for all the responces! :)

 

[chroot]

1) No one really cares about detecting asteroids. There are hundreds of thousands of them, and there's no real need to know all their exact locations.

2) Comets and other bodies that pose a threat to Earth are generally very long-period objects, or objects in hyperbolic orbits that only come close to the Earth one time. Using some giant flash in space has essentially no chance of finding them.

3) Radar jamming is an activity used by the military (generally) to prevent their aircraft or other vehicles from appearing on the enemy's radar. No one is jamming astronomical radar instruments.

4) Light of all frequencies travels equally well through empty space. The dust in interstellar space absorbs visibile light more than infrared light, however, but we're not talking about interstellar distances.

Bottom line, yet again: it's not feasible, and there are better ways to detect objects.

- Warren

 

[Memnoch]

Chroot,
It was just a random Idea I had and continued it on here for follow through. Random idea as I mentioned in my first post but oh well.

1. The asteroid drama is being promoted by the media and NASA want's more funding for the project of detecting those objects. According to the overdramatic news, tracking them is essential for future generations and their protection and the more we know the better off we are regardless.
2. The more we know the better of we are regardless.
3. Doesn't the Suns radiation effect Radar in space? That or other forms of radiation?
4. The light mentioning was off the top of my head and accumulated from the knowledge I knew of light's traveling underwater.

Bottom line: It's actually feasible and cost effective since you'd be using 1800's - 1900's technology to build up energy to emmit the flash. This device could even be build in space. Again, a random idea that can be worked out pretty easily with the most simple knowledge of electricity.
Also, why not give this a shot? It's never been tried before so who knows what the results will be. It's not like the world's going to run out of money so funding shouldn't be an issue.

 

[chroot]

What makes you think it's feasible? Do you have any idea how much such an object would weigh, or how much money it would cost to build?

- Warren

 

[chroot]

Keep in mind as well that in science, money is best spent where results are most likely. A space telescope is much more likely to detect new and exciting things than is some kind of big interplanetary flash. The only things that such a flash could find are some new asteroids or maybe some Kupier belt objects. Finding such objects does not really improve our understanding of the universe much.

- Warren

 

[Memnoch]

If a swedish man can build a cruise missle for only $5,000 than I'm sure building a simple energy collection device that emmits flashes wouldn't be too much more. In regards to weight who knows. Personally I think that we should of kept MIR up in space for spare parts if anyone needed them for such projects. But that's a different matter.
This may not improve our understanding of the universe but I'd like to look closer to home and improve our understanding about how our Solar System works and it's history. The only way to progress is to learn from the past and record anything you can that you find. This may be another way of doing such. It also may aide future generations in regards to tracking objects in space. There's no harm in doing such a project and only enhances our chances of developing new energy collecting technology or developing energy producing technology.

 

[chroot]

Oh, so "who knows" how much it weighs? Surely it must be feasible then! Great argument!

The harm in doing such a project is that it squanders money and resources from projects that actually have a hope of producing new discoveries.

Mapping the solar system down to bagel-sized rocks is not science, it's cartography.

- Warren

 

[Memnoch]

Again, the project wouldn't cost much since you'd be using old school technology that's now taught and built in Electronics 101. Tesla's inventions for collecting energy and then releasing it shouldn't be hard. Building a similar device on a large scale in space to serve the purpose of releasing multiple flashes for tracking objects our Sun cannot illuminate doesn't sound like a waste. I'm sure such a device wouldn't carry a large weight. Collecting old satellites, sending up current resources, etc are methods of building the device in space or any device if you don't want to waste a payload.
Maping the outter rim of the Solar System or mapping the solar system in general by any means sounds like a good thing that falls under Science. This method of detecting new objects within space may also allow us to send more devices to get a view of the objects once flashed to send photo's down to geologists that may be able to piece together an origin for asteroids or how the surface of an object may look.
There is a lot you can do with the concept of flashing objects in space to reveal more information about the object.
Deciding where money goes for projects isn't my place but NASA's. If NASA can use this technique for anything then invest money into it's research and development. Right now NASA seems to be focusing on a new form of Glass, a more pure glass. They are also focusing on promoting the discovery of more asteroids and tracking them along with other objects in space. This method may assist them for their benifit rather than investing money in companies who hold expensive patents on Radar tachnology or telescope technologies.

 

[chroot]

Several very intelligent people have already explained why this is not a worthwhile idea in very clear terms, yet you continue to talk about it as if we haven't. Give it up. If it's such a great idea, send it to NASA. Don't be surprised when they don't write back.

- Warren

 

[Memnoch]

Actually Neried asked a question and I answered. Since it's my post I'm following up on comments. When you began to post with incorrect information such as "No one cares about detecting asteroids" etc. I had to correct since there's an effort being put forth to discover such things. I'm just responding to your comments since I posted the topic in the first place.

 

[chroot]

There are ground-based programs in place to detect minor planets, you are correct. They are cheap. The study of minor planets is not important enough to be given the enormous budget your little flash project would entail; a space telescope would be a much more useful thing to buy.

- Warren

 

[Memnoch]

Light and telescopes go hand in hand. Again, thanks for the feedback and the information :) It's definitely received more attention than I thought and I appreciate everyones feedback. Utilizing all technologies from the past to present will play its role and all concepts or ideas are welcome since that's what got us to space in the first place. Thought I'd throw a random thought out and it seemed to provoke a nice responce and get people thinking. That's always the purpose of science, to be creative and utilize all knowledge to better understand all of our surroundings.
NASA just developed what they call Pure Glass. To be able to mass produce this or enhance it if that's possible may allow for more amazing lenses. Hopefully a cost effective and advanced telescope can be placed in space to find more objects and discover more of our Universe. In regards to my idea, it's just a random idea. LOL
I'll definitely make sure to post more and I might throw out some more thought out random ideas.
-=|peace|=-
-Memnoch-

 

[chroot]

Memnoch,

It's indeed a cool idea! Just make sure you temper your ideas with reality. Building and flying such a flash into interplanetary space is a much bigger project that you seem to recognize; it costs hundreds of millions of dollars to launch a spacecraft as small as the Mars landers, and I have the feeing your flash would be much, much much heavier, since it would have to include an enormous energy source. All in all, it seems we'd be better off using our natural light source -- the sun -- and using arrays of cheap ground-based light-bucket telescopes to do our minor planet hunting.

Have you done the math to figure out how bright a flash would have to be to light up a planet by some amount? Say, take the energy received on Earth in sunlight reflected by a planet like Jupiter as one unit. How much energy would it take for your flash to light up Jupiter an extra unit, given that the flash is some given distance x away from Jupiter? I bet you'd be utterly staggered at how much energy it would take! I would be more than happy to work out the numbers with you.

- Warren

 

[Memnoch]

Oh and Chroot,
Here's some more info on that project for detecting more objects in space.
http://www.space.com/news/neo_hearing_040408.html

 

[Nereid]

Objectives, methods, etc

Doing something cool, just to see what happens, is what all kinds of folk have done, no doubt for thousands of years. If the 'something cool' costs a lot of €, then you have to convince someone who's got lots of € that it's worth their while to spend those € on your idea (unless you have lots of €, then the sales pitch is much more straight-forward ). Somewhere in any realistic sales pitch would be a statement of objectives - what is it that we might expect to get from the investment of lots of €. If the € needed is significant, the pitch would also need to include some stuff on why your method is better than the competition's.

If your objective has to do with learning more about objects in the solar system, it'd be best to break your proposal into two parts - detection and observation (finding objects not previously detected, and learning more about objects previously found).

For detection, there are essentially two questions - how comprehensive (e.g. all objects in the EKB with diameters > 40km), and where (e.g. all objects with orbits between Mercury and Mars). If your interest is 'anything' which orbits beyond ~Mars, then some kind of ground-based survey program would likely give the best bang for the € - e.g. telescopes near Keck and the VLT, or maybe just one telescope near the WHT in the Canaries. What about a Memnoch flash? Big no-no; as Janitor pointed out, it'd have to be brighter than the most powerful nuclear devices ever detonated on Earth, probably by a factor of >1,000,000,000; the inverse square law - applied twice - guarrantees that very few photons would get back to you (not to mention the need to watch the whole sky for tiny flashes).

If it's NEOs you want to catch, a survey program would still be best, but you'd need different telescopes (and detectors, and software, ...), and a lot more of them. A Memnoch flash? While you wouldn't need such a powerful nuclear device (perhaps as weak as 100,000 times as powerful as the biggest ever set off on Earth), you'd need to set one off every few months, if not weeks. Oh, and the all-sky tiny flashes problem would be the same. Same old friend inverse square, twice.

For observation, existing ground-based telescopes - plus instruments and software - will continue to give the best overall results. For some objectives, Hubble and Spitzer will do a better job, and if there's a spacecraft on its way (e.g. Casini-Huygens towards Saturn and its moons). A Memnoch flash? Kg for kg, a spacecraft with well-designed instruments would likely win with the evaluation committee.