Nature reports 'Galactic internet' proposed. This is an interesting idea of using Cephid variable stars to send intergalactic messages.
"Cepheids dim and brighten regularly, in a pattern that depends on their brightness. This lets astronomers measure the distance to the stars, helping to resolve mysteries such as the Universe's age and how fast it is expanding. As such, any sufficiently advanced civilization would want to monitor such stars, the scientists reasoned.
To send messages using a Cepheid, Learned and his colleagues suggest that extraterrestrials might change the star's cycle. A Cepheid becomes dimmer as ionized helium builds up in its atmosphere. Eventually, the atmosphere expands and deionizes, restarting the cycle.
Firing a high-energy neutrino beam into a Cepheid could heat its core and brighten the star early — 'just as an electric pulse to the heart can make it skip a beat,' Learned says."
"The normal and shortened pulses could be used to encode data, to form what the researchers call a 'galactic Internet'" though "a Cepheid with a one day period could transmit [only] about 180 bits of data a year."
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