A nuclear war is going to produce a spectrum very different from your general run of habitable star systems -- heavy on x-rays, for example. A really, really, *really* sensitive instrument looking at the right mix of frequencies might be able to detect a full-out nuclear war a few parsecs away (after lightspeed delay, as discussed above).

On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 3:31 PM, Postmark <xxxxxx@btinternet.com> wrote:

On 6 Apr 2016, at 22:46, Kurt Feltenberger <xxxxxx@thepaw.org> wrote:
>
> This question touches on the known and theoretical...
>
> Are there any particles or emissions, however faint, known or theorized, that would allow a sufficiently sensitive sensor to detect a nuclear detonation (actually, enough to destroy all civilization on a world of ~7+ billion people in a day) at interstellar distances either as it happened or within a short (less than a week or so) period of time?
>
> My gut says no, but with mesons and other goodies that are on the bleeding edge, I figured I'd ask and see what the hive has to say.

I think that there are two grounds for saying no:

Firstly, no non-FTL particle is going to reach the next star in less than a year or so.

Secondly, even global thermonuclear war is dull next to the output of a star.

Phil Kitching

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Craig Berry (http://google.com/+CraigBerry)
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