Pulsar Positioning System: A quest for evidence of extraterrestrial engineering

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential of pulsar-based navigation as a galactic-scale positioning system and investigates whether it could be evidence of extraterrestrial engineering, proposing a SETI research program to test this hypothesis.

Contribution

It introduces the SETI-XNAV research framework to evaluate if pulsar signals are artificially engineered by extraterrestrial civilizations.

Findings

Pulsars could serve as galactic navigation beacons.

The distribution and properties of pulsars may indicate artificial origin.

Pulsar signals might contain encoded information or synchronization cues.

Abstract

Pulsars have at least two impressive applications. First, they can be used as highly accurate clocks, comparable in stability to atomic clocks; secondly, a small subset of pulsars, millisecond X-ray pulsars, provide all the necessary ingredients for a passive galactic positioning system. This is known in astronautics as X-ray pulsar-based navigation (XNAV). XNAV is comparable to GPS, except that it operates on a galactic scale. I propose a SETI-XNAV research program to test the hypothesis that this pulsar positioning system might be an instance of galactic-scale engineering by extraterrestrial beings (section 4). The paper starts by exposing the basics of pulsar navigation (section 2), continues with a critique of the rejection of the extraterrestrial hypothesis when pulsars were first discovered (section 3). The core section 4 proposes lines of inquiry for SETI-XNAV, related to: the pulsar distribution and power in the galaxy; their population; their evolution; possible pulse synchronizations; pulsar usability when navigating near the speed of light; decoding galactic coordinates; directed panspermia; and information content in pulses. Even if pulsars are natural, they are likely to be used as standards by ETIs in the galaxy (section 5). I discuss possible objections and potential benefits for humanity, whether the research program succeeds or not (section 6).