Thousands of miniscule wireless sensors, or "smart dust," could one day be used to explore other planets.
Several research groups are developing tiny smart dust devices. Each is a few cubic millimeters in volume and can perform simple sensing tasks and relay messages to other such devices over distances of less than a meter.
Together, they can be sprinkled across an area or throughout a building, and used to sense chemicals or vibrations, and relay messages from one another back to a central control.
I've argued that genuine extrasolar aliens would be more inclined to use a form of "smart dust" than rely on relatively cumbersome flying discs. The aliens themselves might even take the form of smart dust or its interstellar equivalent. Paradoxically, the UFO phenomenon, while physically real, presents us with the disconcerting specter of flesh-and-bone beings at the controls of comprehensible (if unconventional) vehicles.
2 comments:
I would argue that the aliens are the smart dust.
ns
I agree with Anon!
--WMB as Anon2
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