Professor proposes how a black hole in orbit around a planet could be a sign of an advanced civilization

[Judi Lynn]

August 23, 2024
by Matt Williams, Universe Today



Ray traced shadow of a spinning and charged black hole. Credit: Simon Tyran, CC BY-SA 4.0


In 1971, English mathematical physicist and Nobel-prize winner Roger Penrose proposed how energy could be extracted from a rotating black hole. He argued that this could be done by building a harness around the black hole's accretion disk, where infalling matter is accelerated to close to the speed of light, triggering the release of energy in multiple wavelengths.

Since then, multiple researchers have suggested that advanced civilizations could use this method (the Penrose Process) to power their civilization and that this represents a technosignature we should be on the lookout for.

Examples include John M. Smart's Transcension Hypothesis, a proposed resolution to the Fermi Paradox where he suggested advanced intelligence may migrate to the region surrounding black holes to take advantage of the energy available.

The latest comes from Harvard Professor Avi Loeb, who proposed in a recent paper how advanced civilizations could rely on a "Black Hole Moon" to provide their home planet with power indefinitely. The way this black hole would illuminate the planet it orbits, he argues, would constitute a potential technosignature for future SETI surveys.

Professor Loeb is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University, the Director of the Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center of Astrophysics (CfA), the founding Director of the Black Hole Initiative (BHI), and the head of the Galileo Project.

More:
https://phys.org/news/2024-08-professor-black-hole-orbit-planet.html%20advanced%20civilization.

[GreenWave]

1. If there are any advanced civilizations, I suspect they have long since "vamoosed"...

... The Milky Way and Andromeda and other nearby galaxies because of the Great Attractor

https://www.universetoday.com/113150/what-is-the-great-attractor/

And that's not the only attractor out there!

[2naSalit]

2. Probably...

Also could serve as a deterrent for species like ours! We're afraid of black holes so that'll keep us away!

[EYESORE 9001]

3. Best thing about having a black hole moon?

Black hole garbage chute! I lived for a time in an apartment that had a communal garbage chute, and I can vouch for the convenience. With all that black hole energy available, it would be possible to rid the planet of waste products that can’t be eliminated through burial or incineration. Like nuclear waste. Oh, BTW, who needs nuclear power plants now anyway? Or power plants of any kind, for that matter? I figure that using small conventional rockets to launch payloads of the worst nuclear waste into a trajectory to the black hole moon would have this place spiffy in no time. Seems a fair trade off to me. Eventually the need would end along with the resources used to send that nuclear waste packing.

[EYESORE 9001]

4. BLACK HOLE MOON GARBAGE SHOOT

I just gave that phrase a goog and found nothing. I hereby claim oversight of this garbage shoot project. Assuming a teensy black hole wanders into orbit around the earth without destroying us before we could adapt and utilize its power. And leave the moon we already have alone!

Under the influence of the black hole moon’s distortion of space time, it shouldn’t take as much energy to reach escape velocity for any rocket - even those carrying looky-loos who want to see the event horizon up close. I’ll concede that operation to the muskrat, who I invite to check it out for himself.