Galactic Kites
Abstract
I show that interstellar films of material thinner than a micron, drift away from the Galactic plane as a result of stellar radiation pressure. Such films, whether produced naturally by dust coagulation in proto-planetary disks or artificially by technological civilizations, would accumulate over the age of the Milky Way and hover above the Galactic disk at a scale-height set gravitationally by the dark matter halo. Limits on scattered starlight imply that this population carries a fraction below 2 × 10-3 of the interstellar medium mass.
- Publication:
-
Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- May 2022
- DOI:
- 10.3847/2515-5172/ac72ad
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2205.10618
- Bibcode:
- 2022RNAAS...6..104L
- Keywords:
-
- Interstellar dynamics;
- 839;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
- E-Print:
- 4 pages, submitted to an AAS Journal