Astronomers have discovered radio signals coming from the direction of the near red dwarf star – the closest star in the solar system.
According to The Guardian, scientists have not officially announced this information. However, this strange signal is believed to be a narrow 980 MHz radio wave detected by the Parkes Telescope in Australia between April and May 2019.
The Parkes Telescope is part of a $ 100 million Breakthrough Listen project that searches for radio signals outside the solar system. The 980 MHz signal only appeared once and was never found. According to Scientific American, this range of radio waves usually come only from satellites and man-made products.
Breakthrough Listen regularly detects abnormal radio signals – natural signals from the sun to other natural sources outside the solar system. However, this time, the signal appears to be coming directly from a nearby star – a red dwarf star just 4.2 light years from the solar system. It is also the closest star to the solar system.
Another suspicious point is that the signal has changed slightly as scientists observe, like a change due to the movement of a planet. Near Planet was once thought to be a rocky planet, 17% larger than Earth.
Citing an anonymous source, The Guardian said it was “the first serious candidate for aliens to send communication signals” since scientists discovered the first strange signal outside. Earth in 1977. However, it is still possible that this is only a signal from a comet or a cluster of hydrogen.
Sofia Sheikh of the University of Pennsylvania, head of signal analysis at Breakthrough Listen, expressed her enthusiasm: “This was the most exciting signal we’ve seen on the project. Before, no signal had ever passed our filter ”. Speaking to Scientific American, Sheikh said he called the signal “escape candidate 1” (BLC1).
The biggest challenge in finding alien life is that no one knows how aliens communicate, and no one knows all of the natural radio wave sources in space. So when signals that seem technologically plausible are detected, people immediately think of aliens.
So far, no data on this signal has been made public. Even if it is made public, it is possible that one cannot find a definitive conclusion about it.
