Essay on possibility of x-ray and gamma ray band communication

As more primitive civilizations are mainly experienced with radio waves and visible light they may be "left in dark" by other advanced species that are using frequencies people can’t use in communication like x-rays and gamma rays. As illustrated above observers on ground can mainly detect visible light and some radio waves but other radiation types get mostly absorbed by atmosphere. Gamma ray bursts were discovered by early satellites that were designed to detect nuclear explosions but also happened to detect gamma ray bursts from space.

High energy radiation including x-rays release electrons (e) from atoms they hit and lose energy in process. Gamma rays and high energy ions from space can cause release of many electrons, protons and if they have enough energy then also some gamma ray and x-ray photons (image source). This would scramble, weaken and distort any message sent in form of ionizing radiation. 

These can’t go far in air and are therefore mainly reachable by some intelligent life form operating in vacuum of space.
Although destructive to whatever they hit x-rays and gamma rays have high frequency that may be used to carry more data. For example x-rays have 3×10¹⁶ Hz to 3×10¹⁹ Hz and gamma rays have higher frequency. Good enough control of x-rays would allow passing of up to 3×10¹⁶ to 3×10¹⁹ data values every second which could mean up to 30 thousand to 30 million terabytes per second which could allow civilizations to send out almost all their recordings very fast and overview of their species within a second.

Creating such beam of data could be achievable by humans already but recording this data may not be possible yet.

Sources for x-ray and gamma ray data. At least x-ray signals may be achieved by irradiating different elements that pass some intense electron beam source to create resonance x-ray signal (K-alpha and K-beta) which depends on element and every element would release different x-ray frequencies and energies.
Overview of x-rays different elements release can be found in this table. Energies vary from 800 eV (electronvolt) x-rays in neon to ~100 000 eV gamma rays in plutonium where lightest elements have lowest energy radiations and heavier radioactive substances like uranium producing ~100 000 eV radiation. At first every extra proton increases radiation energy by ~200 eV but it gradually increases to 2000 eV with each proton. Due to wide range of energy levels these different elements could be used to create different data points. These don't have to be restricted to bits or even bytes as there are over 100 elements available and each could be used to send some symbol from numbers to letters and other needed symbols. X-ray antenna may be particle accelerator that sends particles into strong electron beam that causes release of x-rays which are then directed towards desired location with opening in radiation shielding. These elements may need to be very close to each other in this particle accelerator as x-rays have wavelength of 10-0,01 nanometers and that lower end is about half of atomic diameter. If different atoms could be accelerated with 1 nanometer between them with speed of light then they may create x-rays with ~1 nanometer wavelength but easier way may be to use several accelerators working together with serious precision to get many separate x-ray beams directed to intended location in space.   

Something analogous could be used to create gamma ray beams. Neutron radiation or just collision of atoms moving near speed of light can create nuclear fission with certain energy/frequency and that depend on isotope which could be sent in orderly line towards neutron stream. Different isotopes (about 3000 are known including very short lived isotopes) could be used to create different gamma ray photons and with thousands of isotopes to work with each isotope collision could create 1 value out of thousands which may easily be letters in many alphabets, numbers, pixel data etc. so even if they create 1 billion collisions per second they could still send several bytes worth of data with every collision. If 1000 isotopes were usable then 1000 in binary is 10 bits long. 3000 isotopes could carry 22 bits with each isotope.

Data readers and recorders.Trickiest part is counting signals from x-ray or gamma ray source. Easiest way to separate signals would be to use radiation detectors behind different radiation shields. For example one shield allowing any photon with over 800 eV to pass, another for those with 1000 eV and so on for every energy level different elements could create. When capturing high enough energy gamma rays then there is likelihood of atoms splitting to new elements and different elements need different minimum energy amount to go through fission. Resulting radiation and formation of elements could also have some role as data reader.

Overview of several gamma ray bursts. Most last several seconds but few last for milliseconds. More powerful photons can activate all detectors behind weaker shields but one way to have some order would be to create bursts that start strongest or weakest and move to opposite extreme with detectors recording most powerful recent photons. Most of them have somewhat gradual fall in intensity which may help record their content as they often jump to some maximum, then fall until jumping up in intensity again and that could help with reading most energetic photons as detectors and also constantly change which electrode is going to transmit signal from most powerful photon.


In case there is intelligent life causing gamma ray burst and they want to be found then it's likely they use elements, energy levels and timing that is different from natural sources. For example using wolfram (x-ray machines use wolfram due to heat resistance) and other heat resistant elements which are unlikely to randomly be concentrated but likely to be used by creatures wanting to have heat resistant components. Maybe sign of one pure element, then another and like that for around a minute. In case they want to hide and intimidate they may wait until there is distant galaxy behind them and send high energy burst towards some planet where locals may think the source was several billion light years away and hopelessly hard to reach while also seemingly having some scary energy bursts coming from that far.