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 2x10^{-3} of the interstellar medium mass.

arXiv comment4 pages, submitted to an AAS Journal