Re: [FT] sensors

laserlight@quixnet.net said:
> Reading through other parts of Nyrath's site, I saw discussions of how
a
> drive plume can be detected from here to Antares, but I didn't notice
> anything about how far away you can detect a ship which is using an
> Handwavium drive, which (as everyone knows) has no rocket exhaust.
> Let's say you move by generating a small black hole in front of you
and a
> negative mass equivalent (generates a push rather than a pull) behind
you.
> a) how would this be detected?

There would be hawking radiation from the black hole for a
start. Depending on your definition of small, the black hole
may evaporate long before it can be used to go very far.

Both would probably generate gravity waves. The black hole
would bend the light of anything it occulted. Any mass
falling into the blackhole (e.g. dust) will heat up and
generate X rays.

What's holding the negative mass together btw? It's definitely
not gravity. It's probably going to be quite big so you're going
to need a lot of energy to hold it together, which itself
could be detected. If you can't compress it to be really small,
then it's a big object which is probably highly visible to
both visible light and radar.

-- 
Be seeing you,			    --------------------------
Sam.				    http://www.glendale.org.uk