• A “passive solar LIDAR” scheme was proposed that would repurpose the world’s photovoltaic panels as a planet-scale photodiode array, reverse-biasing them at night to detect faint sunlight reflections off small near-Earth or inner-solar-system objects by cross-correlating microsecond-scale solar-intensity fluctuations with their delayed echoes.

• The technique uses inexpensive AC-coupled pyranometers or USB sound-card ADCs (44.1 kHz ≈ 6.25 km depth bins; 192 kHz ≈ 1.5 km) and GPS-disciplined clocks to coherently sum signals from geographically separated PV parks, yielding both range and, over time, orbital parameters.

• Early experimental targets suggested include Mars, the Moon, the ISS, and binary near-Earth asteroids; a minimal test rig would consist of a single solar panel, variable-gain audio amplifier, RTL-SDR or high-rate sound card, and battery for reverse bias.

• Technical challenges discussed include inverse-square-law signal loss, thermal/electronic noise in solar-panel circuitry, the need for coherent sampling across large distances, and the engineering cost of retrofitting thousands of panels with synchronized digitizers.

• The same correlation method was speculatively extended to exoplanet detection or encoding interstellar “we are here” beacons, though doppler compensation and irrational-frequency encoding were noted as open problems.

• Participants agreed to write a concise LaTeX white-paper with equations and diagrams before approaching professional astronomy channels (e.g., ##astronomy) for critique and pilot-experiment collaboration.

• A side idea emerged to use the Sun’s stochastic output as a publicly verifiable random beacon for interplanetary cryptocurrency consensus, though no concrete protocol was provided.

• Historical context was provided on SBIRS (Space-Based Infrared System) as the source of Chelyabinsk meteor trajectory data, highlighting that most early-warning services are government-funded while private ventures typically repackage public data.