This is Scientific Americans 60 Second Science.

I'm Lee Billings.

You got a minute?

LASERS are the preferred weapons for interplanetary warfare and countless works of science fiction.

But they might actually be better at keeping the peace.

Because a new study finds that lasers offer an efficient, elegant way to conceal our planet,

hiding us from any prying malevolent aliens throughout

the Cosmos.

Let's do it, let's cloak the Earth.

David Kipping, a professor of astronomy at Columbia University who came up with the idea along with a graduate student

Alex Teachy. So why would a civilization want to hide?

Teachy. So a lot of scientists including Stephen Hawking has said that it actually might be dangerous for other civilizations out there to know that we exist.

If you look at the history of humanity, there have been cases where two civilizations have come in contact for the first time, one of these

civilizations with a slightly more advanced technology and that group has ended up

subjugating the other group and so you know something like that could happen

on a planetary scale.

Over the past two decades astronomers have discovered thousands of planets orbiting

other stars most of those were found by observing

temporary small decreases in the light coming from those stars due to a planet passing. That

mini-eclips is called a transit, and it's possible that from the point of view of some intelligent aliens the Earth causes small dips in our sun's light telling anyone watching that we're here.

So how can we hide? By making up for the sunlight we're blocking.

And you can do this with lasers, moderately powered lasers.

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