Transiting Quasites as a Possible Technosignature

Columbia University
Research Notes of the AAS
10-Jul-2019
Particles in the vicinity of a massive object will generally follow Keplerian orbits. Deviations from Keplerian motion arise in a number of contexts though, such as gravitational multipole moments (Tremaine & Tomer 2014), general relativistic corrections (Misner et al. 1973) and anisotropic thermal emission (Yarkovsky effect; see Bottke et al. 2006). One engineered mechanism for non-Keplerian motion was suggested by Forward (1993) and McInnes & Simmons (1992b), where radiation pressure is used accordingly. In both works, the authors primarily focus on geocentric satellites and suggest that geostationary orbits could be maintained above the equatorial plane via an angled mirror incident to Solar radiation pressure. Forward refers to these as "statites," as a result of their apparent static nature in the observer's sky. Recent work by Baig & McKinnes (2010) finds that such orbits should be theoretically stable 10

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/ab2fdb